Today's Topics:
1. Libertarian Initiative of Thessaloniki: Interventions of
AUTh. with breakage and paint in 2 stores of the supermarket
chain Lidl in Thessaloniki. [machine translation]
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
AUTh. with breakage and paint in 2 stores of the supermarket
chain Lidl in Thessaloniki. [machine translation]
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
2. France, Union Communiste Libertaire UCL Al #309 -
Anti-fascism, United States: the Alt Right
Anti-fascism, United States: the Alt Right
contaminates Europe
(de, it, fr, pt)[machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
(de, it, fr, pt)[machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
3. Greece, DYSINIAN HORSE A.P.O. - Polytechnic 2020: Call for 3
days and the course from the Branch [machine translation]
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
days and the course from the Branch [machine translation]
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
4. zabalaza.net: Nigeria and the Hope of the #EndSARS Protests
by SIFUNA ZONKE (pt) (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
by SIFUNA ZONKE (pt) (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
5. anarkismo.net: Nigeria and the Hope of the
#EndSARS Protests
by Shawn Hattingh - ZACF zacf at riseup dot net
by Shawn Hattingh - ZACF zacf at riseup dot net
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
6. UK, ACG: Stormy Petrel flying next week!!
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
7. CGT-LKN Nafarroa: Interview with Carlos Taibo: "I don't know
what worries me more, the alarm or the State" -
what worries me more, the alarm or the State" -
Interviews (ca)
[machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
On Thursday 12/11/2020 we carried out interventions in two stores of the
supermarket chain Lidl in Thessaloniki, in response to the criminal indifference
of the employer for the safety and lives of its employees, after the confirmation
of a Cov-19 case in the chain's warehouses: ---- ii) we attacked and broke the
facade of the Lidl store at 102 Papanastasiou Alexandrou Street in Kato Toumpa
---- ii) we intervened by throwing paint on the facade of the Lidl store at 56
Olympiados Street in the city center. ---- We will not allow the pandemic to
become an occasion for the further material devaluation of our class. ---- >From
the first months of the pandemic, in the spring, the bosses were discouraged from
taking the slightest measure of protection for the workers, leaving them exposed
to the virus, clearly showing how expendable they considered their workforce and
that they would not hesitate to no way to sacrifice even the lives of employees
and their families on the altar of profit.
In particular, Lidl did not even provide the basic health protection measures to
the employees. In fact, during the first period they were forbidden to wear a
mask, which they themselves supplied at their own expense, so as not to spoil the
false image of the forced smiling employee. Based on the health instructions of
EODY, the employer is obliged to provide the employees with masks. Lidl, however,
does not provide masks to employees, and the necessary glazing was never
installed at the checkout. And as turnover increases, work intensification
increases and employees dwindle.
The culmination came in the last days, after the confirmation of a case in the
company's warehouses, the employer refused to conduct a test on the 150 employees
working in the warehouses, without any substantial health protection measures.
With the coverage they provide to the employer and the "protocols" of EODY and of
course... none of the 150 employees who worked together with the confirmed case
was put in preventive quarantine! In fact, the well-known candy of "individual
responsibility" was mobilized and the employer considered it reasonable for the
employees to pay for the tests themselves from the meager wages he gives them.
All this, of course, does not come as a surprise, considering the consistent
practices of the supermarket chains and especially that of Lidl, which has even
been awarded as the best employer (!). Numerous complaints about employer
terrorism, ghost overtime, ban on (certain by law) breaks, depressing
environment, bullying, ban on social interaction with colleagues in the store and
all this to avoid dismissal. Hundreds are the redundancies of the last years,
with the most glaring example being the dismissal of a cancer patient with the
excuse that he contradicted a client, but also the resignations due to the
miserable conditions.
At the moment when all we are allowed to do is go to work (with a suffocatingly
full bus), we are blamed solely for the spread of the virus, while the bosses
themselves are the ones who expose us to the virus, always with blessings of the
state. The pandemic is portrayed as a unique opportunity for the state and
capital to exhaust every opportunity to infringe on labor rights. The 400 euros /
month of the suspension of work and the release of the dismissals are
supplemented by a bill-abortion that is submitted in the next period and violates
the 8-hour and the possibility of strike, rights, that is, won by struggles and
blood of workers. The government, in the service of capital, in the face of the
huge health and economic crisis, does not hesitate at all and attacks the social
base in every way, exposing in the eyes of the working people the barbarity of
the class nature that governs the capitalist beast. The slogan of the workers in
the supermarkets of France could not be more accurate: "Your profits, our dead!"
We are not beggars, nor do we owe it to the bosses that we sell our labor to make
them rich. For all of us who have no other means of survival, this is all we have
to sell. Their blatant demands and employer impunity, which are exacerbated
during the pandemic, can only be stopped by the class self-organization and the
militant trade union action of the workers themselves. Our answer to the bosses
is that in every attack, the working class will always find ways to
counterattack, until it abolishes the privileges and powers of the parasitic
capitalist oligarchy.
It is time to counterattack. Let not let the intensification, the degrading
behaviors and the degradation of the value of our own life become the rule for
all of us.
DIRECT FINANCIAL SUPPORT OF THE WORLD OF WORK AND effective measures to shield
HEALTH AGENCIES
DO NOT allow any circumvention LABOR OUR RIGHTS
ORGANIZATION AND STRUGGLE IN AREAS OF WORK, THE ERGODOSIAS break the TSAMPOUKAS
SOLIDARITY WEAPON OF LABOR, WAR WAR OF BOSS
Freedom Initiative of Thessaloniki (member of the Anarchist Federation)
e-mail contact:lib_thess@hotmail.com
blog: libertasalonica.wordpress.com
??. Precisely because the state management of the pandemic is consistent with
repression instead of sanitary measures and with absolutely no support of the
NSS, at the same time that huge sums are scattered in the canals and on long
walks, because our bosses have found in the pandemic a communication "perfect"
occasion, to trample us even more, because the state has seen in the pandemic the
best opportunity, to pass anti-labor laws that will further crush our order, such
as the bankruptcy code and the new labor bill, which is why we, Workers,
unemployed and unemployed, we have no choice but to take to the streets on
November 17, to finally demand that the state stop walking around us at this
critical juncture,hiring more and more cops, while we do not have doctors and
ICU, to demand that he stop exploiting the pandemic, to seize even our first home
and to trample on our last labor rights.
NOVEMBER 17 ALL AND EVERYONE ON THE STREETS OF THE RACE RESPECTING THE NECESSARY
HEALTH PROTECTION MEASURES
https://libertasalonica.wordpress.com/2020/11/13/
------------------------------
Message: 2
Appeared at the end of the 2000s in the United States in a context of
recomposition of the far-right and favored by the election of Donald Trump, the
Alt-right has today imposed itself on the American political scene. On the
occasion of the crisis born from the pandemic, it is now setting out to conquer
Europe. ---- The expression Alt-right, for alternative right, was coined in 2008
by white supremacist activist Richard B. Spencer. Openly racist and close to
neo-Nazi circles, Spencer advocates the "ethno-nationalist", campaigns for women
to be confined to the domestic sphere, and if he is pro-abortion it is only to
limit the births of black children and latinos. During Obama's presidency, the
Alt-Right gained popularity by using the revengeful rhetoric of the emasculated
white man, frustrated at no longer being able to quietly express his sexism,
racism and homophobia. The election of Trump, the first promoter of the ideas
carried by this new far-right, will accelerate its deployment.
Charlottesville, August 2017
Wikipedia
She will gain popularity following the "Unite the Right" demonstrations that she
co-organized in Charlottesville in August 2017 to protest against the withdrawal
of a statute from Confederate General Robert Lee, and which mixed neo-Nazis,
Klanists and Alt- right. Violent clashes broke out, leaving around thirty injured
and killing a demonstrator, run over by the vehicle of a white supremacist
deliberately rushing at the counter-demonstrators. Trump sends back to back the
violence of the two camps before recovering and specifying that among the pro-Lee
demonstrators, there was not only the Klu-Klux-Klan, but also and especially good
people very good.
An epidemic of racist and conspicuous speeches
Since then, armed "self-defense" groups have multiplied and acted as auxiliaries
for law enforcement, such as the Patriot Prayer, founded in 2016, a pro-Trump
group active on the west coast of the United States. Under the guise of defending
freedom of expression, he seeks physical confrontation against anti-fascist
activists and more generally what they call the Alt-left (anarchists and
anti-fas). The Boogaloo Boys, for their part, advocate the constitution of armed
militias with a view to provoking a second civil war. You can recognize them by
their colorful Hawaiian-style shirts and heavy arsenal. Very active in
anti-containment demonstrations, the Boogaloo mix patriotism, virilism and
conspiracy.
Alongside these active groups is the QAnon movement, which supplies the sites and
forums frequented by the Alt-right with conspiratorial discourse. According to
his followers, President Trump is waging a secret war against elites (government,
financial circles and the media), who are involved in a satanist and pedophile
cabal on a global scale. Initially essentially American, this movement is now
reaching Europe where, on the occasion of the Covid crisis, its conspiracy
theories are attracting more and more people lacking benchmarks. More than ever,
in order to fight against the viruses of the extreme right and of conspiracy, it
is essential to develop everywhere the only valid antidote: a radical
anti-fascism backed by class solidarity.
David (UCL Grand Paris Sud)
https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Etats-unis-l-Alt-Right-contamine-l-Europe
------------------------------
Message: 3
POLYTECHNIC 2020: THE WORLD OF THE RACE WILL BREAK THE PROHIBITIONS ---- ON
NOVEMBER 17 THE ROAD WILL BREAK THE TERROR ---- STATE AND CAPITAL SOW DEATH ----
TO DEFEND LIFE AND HEALTH WITH OUR STRUGGLES ---- "The dead write with the blood
to remember the living" ---- In conditions of health, economic and social crisis,
state bans, generalized terrorism and repression, the movement is called to
defend its memory, its dead, its very history and existence. In conditions of
extreme outbreak of the pandemic and collapse of the NSS due to the timeless
criminal policies of the state (which even during the 10 months of the pandemic
did not take any substantial measures to strengthen it) and at a time when
hundreds of fellow human beings are fighting for their lives under unbearable
conditions, we are called to defend life and health with our struggles.
47 years after the uprising of the Polytechnic, we are called to catch again the
thread of the uprisings, the conflict social and class struggle, the social
disobedience and disobedience to the state demands. 47 years later, the
experiences, the lessons, the spirit of rebellion, the struggle, the solidarity,
the resistance, the conflict, the dynamic initiative and action must break the
generalized fear, the silence, the inaction and the submission.
Uprisings are not laws, but arise in specific circumstances from the action of
the militants, from the initiatives they take to intensify the social and class
struggle, from the escalation of their struggle against the barbarity of the
state and capitalism. From movements that create cracks and disturb the normality
of social silence and submission that the authorities are trying to impose.
The prohibition of the march 17 thNovember and the central role it takes through
the statements of prominent government officials and ministers (at the same time
that the pandemic is on the rise and the NSS is collapsing) demonstrates in the
most characteristic way the strategy and policy of the government, both in terms
of symbolism, The state is legally and repressive against the social storms that
can be caused by the accumulated anger against the anti-social-anti-labor
policies that are applied. The implementation of the preventive
counter-insurgency plan is intensifying during the pandemic period. The vast
majority of society is expendable. All that needs to work is the capitalist
machine and not to disturb the "normality". Resistances and struggles must be put
in plaster. Anything that deviates from and challenges what the state demands
must be hit. The uprisings belong to the past and the only "realistic" present is
the dystopia of the totalitarianism of the state and capital.
In the midst of a pandemic and the spread of the virus, the criminal, parasitic
and anti-social nature of the state emerges in every way, which is indifferent to
human life and the vast majority of the population and is only interested in
maximizing the profits of the bosses. The only thing the rulers want is to save
the economy and "return to capitalist normalcy." The murderous policy of the
state does not include any substantial measures to support the NSS and to stop
the spread of the pandemic, except for poor communication tricks and poor
ideologies of individual responsibility. The only "right" that bosses recognize
in the midst of a health crisis is that of production and consumption. The vast
majority of society should be stacked in the workplace without any measures, to
be trampled on in the MMM and to be left without basic medical care, while at the
same time cops will be hired, military equipment will be purchased and the "big
walks" will take place with fiestas of millions. At the same time, rallies,
demonstrations and any kind of mobilization are targeted as health bombs.
In this year's mobilizations for the Polytechnic - and in the midst of
generalized state bans and a health crisis - the movement must break the ban in
practice. . To act as a catalyst for broader social processes that will put more
and more people on the road. With stubbornness, courage, rage and daring to set
up roadblocks of resistance and solidarity in the total attack of the rulers.
Against the system that only has to offer to the social majority is poverty,
misery, repression, exploitation and death to advance the struggle for life and
dignity. To organize social self-defense and class counterattack. To find
ourselves with all our forces in the hearths of the social and class war.
SOLIDARITY TO THE ARRESTED IN THE EMPTYED POLYTECHNIC AND THE RECTORATE
SOCIAL AND CLASS REVOLUTIONS SHOW THE ROAD
BLOOD IS NOT WATER - MEMORY IS NOT GARBAGE
MATCHES ARE NOT PROHIBITED
NOT A STEP BACK TO STATE TERRORISM AND SUPPRESSION
WE WANT EVERYTHING FOR EVERYONE: HEALTH, NUTRITION, MEDICAL CARE, HOUSING AND
INSURANCE
COURSE FROM THE ANNEX: TUESDAY NOVEMBER 17 AT 18.00
* We observe all measures of individual and collective self-protection
anarchist group "bad horse"
member of the Anarchist Political Organization
https://ipposd.wordpress.com/author/maxno/
------------------------------
Message: 4
A video went viral on social media platforms on October 3, outlining how the
notorious Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) unit of the Nigerian police force
shot a young man, dumped him at the side of the road and stole his car. What
followed was three weeks of protests by young people against such police
brutality and the corruption that defines the state; initially via social media,
#EndSARS, and later in towns and cities across Nigeria. ---- Needless to say, the
protests continued and grew into the largest in the history of Nigeria. As the
protests grew, the state changed tactics and responded to the escalation with
outright violence. Part of this involved the state deploying thugs to attack
protestors in order to try and intimidate people off the streets. When this
failed to produce the state's desired result, it deployed the military and
implemented a curfew in a number of cities. By October 20, however, the protests
had spread across Nigeria. Some of the assets of the Nigerian ruling class were
also targeted during these protests and the largest and most lucrative toll road
in country, Lekki, in Lagos, was blockaded. On that day the military attempted to
brutally end the protests and shot dead 12 people at the Lekki tollgate.
Nigeria and the Hope of the #EndSARS Protests
Shawn Hattingh
A video went viral on social media platforms on October 3, outlining how the
notorious Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) unit of the Nigerian police force
shot a young man, dumped him at the side of the road and stole his car. What
followed was three weeks of protests by young people against such police
brutality and the corruption that defines the state; initially via social media,
#EndSARS, and later in towns and cities across Nigeria.
During these protests the Nigerian state used various tactics to either suppress
the protests or to try and demobilise them through insincere "concessions". To
begin with, the ruling class, the state it controls and its head, President
Muhammadu Buhari, attempted to quell the protests through window dressing.
Inspector General of Police Mohammed Adamu promised on October 11 that the SARS
unit would be disbanded and supposedly replaced with a new unit called SWAT
(Special Weapons and Tactics). This was an obvious lie, as the same personnel
that formed part of SARS would form part of SWAT. Over the last several years the
government has made similar announcements resulting in no actual change.
Needless to say, the protests continued and grew into the largest in the history
of Nigeria. As the protests grew, the state changed tactics and responded to the
escalation with outright violence. Part of this involved the state deploying
thugs to attack protestors in order to try and intimidate people off the streets.
When this failed to produce the state's desired result, it deployed the military
and implemented a curfew in a number of cities. By October 20, however, the
protests had spread across Nigeria. Some of the assets of the Nigerian ruling
class were also targeted during these protests and the largest and most lucrative
toll road in country, Lekki, in Lagos, was blockaded. On that day the military
attempted to brutally end the protests and shot dead 12 people at the Lekki tollgate.
The Nigerian state has a long history of violence
The violence of the Nigerian state that has become evident over the last month is
far from something new. For most of its existence, the Nigerian state has been
under a dictatorship. While Buhari was elected through a very narrow form of
representative democracy, he was also the head of a military dictatorship in the
1980s. In fact, the Nigerian state has a notorious history of using brutal
oppression to hold the working class in check. One needs only think of how the
state unleashed the military onto people in the Niger Delta in the 1990s who were
opposing oil companies, such as Shell, due to the devastation they caused. During
that period, thousands of people were killed or disappeared.
The SARS unit is, therefore, not an exception, but the norm in terms of the
violence of state structures in Nigeria. Members of the SARS unit even routinely
rob people: between 2017 and 2020 there were 82 cases reported of members
involved in ill-treatment, torture and extortion. To understand why the
structures of the Nigerian state are so brutal, one has to understand how
capitalism, imperialism and class rule have functioned in a post-independence
Nigeria. Indeed, although the immediate cause for protests by youth (who are
targeted by the police) is the SARS unit, there are deeper reasons driving the
anger that fuelled the protests.
Class rule and the centrality of the state in wealth accumulation
Large sections of the Nigerian working class and peasantry - with coal mine
workers, railway workers, and women working in markets being central - played a
key role in the fight for Nigeria's independence, which was achieved in 1960. The
change that occurred, however, was limited. Colonial bureaucrats were removed,
however, the state that had been created by the colonial power - Britain - remained.
Although filled with new faces, class rule was maintained. A local elite joined
the ruling class, but the power of British and United States corporations was
left unchecked, and capitalism retained. The real winners of the struggle were
the nationalist leaders of the largest parties who entered into the state, along
with the corporations they were allied to. Indeed, upon independence, one of the
only ways that an aspirant local elite in Nigeria could join the ruling class and
accumulate wealth privately was through the state - due to colonialism there were
few Nigerian capitalists in 1960 (this has changed) and corporations from Britain
mainly dominated the local economy. As such, the state became a vehicle for
attaining wealth and through the state, often via corruption, the local Nigerian
elite built up its capital.
Thus, the history of colonialism and the fact that foreign companies dominated
the private economy meant a local elite needed state power to attain private
wealth during the first few decades of independence. It is through this that
local capitalists were largely built in Nigeria and it is the structural reason
why corruption within the Nigerian state - right down to the level of SARS - is a
defining feature of the country. It has been estimated that between 1960-2005 a
local elite within the state syphoned off US$20 trillion through corruption.
Blatant corruption amongst an elite within or close to the Nigerian state also
meant that softer options - such as cooption - to ensure the compliance of the
working class and peasantry were harder to deploy, as the failures of the state
system were so blatant. In this context, state violence was and has been one of
the main options of the ruling class to ensure their rule and protect their own
wealth and the interests of multinational corporations (especially oil companies)
they are allied with. This is the underlying reason why state violence, including
by SARS, is widespread.
Military coups and dictatorships have marked a large part of Nigeria's history -
having state power ensures private wealth can be accumulated, and to hold onto
state power, violence has often been deployed. While the state in all countries
is an instrument of the ruling class - it protects their wealth and private
property - in Nigeria, it is a particularly important path to accumulate wealth.
If one group of the elite loses state power, it undermines their ability to
accumulate wealth and thus holding onto state power by any means becomes vital -
which also means state violence has become endemic.
The protests were not just driven by SARS
Since the 1980s, the ruling elite and their multinational corporate allies have
driven through a brutal form of neoliberalism for their own benefit. Before the
implementation of neoliberalism, inequality was already rife, but it has now
become chronic. In 2019, Nigeria was ranked bottom of a list of 152 countries in
terms of measures taken to address inequality, such as protecting labour rights
and implementing progressive. The result is three out of every five Nigerians
live in poverty and 40% of people live in extreme poverty and survive on less
than US$1 dollar a day. The five richest Nigerians have a combined wealth of
US$29 billion.
The implementation of neoliberalism has also led to mass unemployment, especially
among youth and 27.1% of Nigerians are unemployed. When combined with
underemployment - due to a lack of 40 hour a week jobs - that figure jumps to
more than 50%. Adding to the powder keg is the reality that the country's
unemployment rate tripled in the last five years. Part of what led to the youth
being willing to undertake the anti-SARS protests is the discontent unemployment,
poverty and inequality are causing. The anti-SARS protests, therefore, need to be
seen in the context of a situation where the working class and peasantry are
under extreme pressure and the actions of SARS - and the corruption they
represent - was the spark.
Strength of the protests
The fact that the protests have been the largest in Nigeria's history is
promising. While the protests should not be viewed as consciously
anti-capitalist, it is only through struggle that people's consciousness can
change and the protests are opening up this possibility, even if it is a small at
the moment.
That the protests were also deliberately organised in a horizontal fashion was
extremely important. In this, people grappled with a better way of organising and
found one that was inclusive. This is vital in the context of Nigeria and the
rest of Africa. There is an unfortunate history of national liberation leaders
selling struggles out in Africa since the 1960s. The fact that the protests aimed
to ensure that there would not be a repeat of a leadership selling out, by making
it horizontal, was an important step forward for struggles in the country.
One tactic that has also historically been deployed by the ruling class in
Nigeria has been the use of ethnicity to divide and rule. In the 1960s this even
led to a brutal civil war. The fact that people of all ethnic backgrounds united
in protest, therefore, was vital and opens up a possibility of a unified
resistance around other issues such as inequality and poverty.
Weaknesses of the protests and possible way forward
One major weakness was that the protests did not have a unified progressive
ideology nor was there an in-depth critique of the role that the state plays,
including the police, under capitalism. Thus, if SARS is truly disbanded this
would be a victory, but the protests may stop at that point. In the face of state
violence, the protests have also tapered off. This may change, but tactics will
have to be developed if the protests re-emerge on how to deal with the inevitable
state violence that will come. This will be no easy task.
One major issue is that a section of the ruling class has also tried to use the
protests to raise their own profiles. Indeed, the protests have been a
cross-class alliance and the danger is that a section of the ruling class could
hijack the protests for their own political gain. Given Nigeria's history this
could be a real problem, and could see sections of the elite trying to use the
protests to get into the state for their own material ends; meaning little change
would come.
Another weakness is that no structures of direct democracy have emerged out of
the protests. Without these, it will be extremely difficult for the protests to
revive, or to become a mass movement that can challenge wider issues, such as how
capitalism in Nigeria is structured and how this is linked to endemic structural
corruption in the state. If the protests are to revive and take on a more radical
direction, a clear ideology would have to emerge through debate and reflection
amongst a significant section of the protestors. Structures to maintain the
movement based on direct democracy would also have to be built.
While this, for now, seems unlikely, being involved in struggle at least opens up
the possibility of it in the future. The positive is that the Nigerian working
class and peasantry are beginning to question - even if still only at the level
of SARS - and are beginning to mobilise. In here, hope lies.
https://zabalaza.net/2020/11/14/nigeria-and-the-hope-of-the-endsars-protests/
------------------------------
Message: 5
A video went viral on social media platforms on October 3, outlining how the
notorious Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) unit of the Nigerian police force
shot a young man, dumped him at the side of the road and stole his car. What
followed was three weeks of protests by young people against such police
brutality and the corruption that defines the state; initially via social media,
#EndSARS, and later in towns and cities across Nigeria. ---- During these
protests the Nigerian state used various tactics to either suppress the protests
or to try and demobilise them through insincere "concessions". To begin with, the
ruling class, the state it controls and its head, President Muhammadu Buhari,
attempted to quell the protests through window dressing. Inspector General of
Police Mohammed Adamu promised on October 11 that the SARS unit would be
disbanded and supposedly replaced with a new unit called SWAT (Special Weapons
and Tactics). This was an obvious lie, as the same personnel that formed part of
SARS would form part of SWAT. Over the last several years the government has made
similar announcements resulting in no actual change.
Needless to say, the protests continued and grew into the largest in the history
of Nigeria. As the protests grew, the state changed tactics and responded to the
escalation with outright violence. Part of this involved the state deploying
thugs to attack protestors in order to try and intimidate people off the streets.
When this failed to produce the state's desired result, it deployed the military
and implemented a curfew in a number of cities. By October 20, however, the
protests had spread across Nigeria. Some of the assets of the Nigerian ruling
class were also targeted during these protests and the largest and most lucrative
toll road in country, Lekki, in Lagos, was blockaded. On that day the military
attempted to brutally end the protests and shot dead 12 people at the Lekki tollgate.
The Nigerian state has a long history of violence
The violence of the Nigerian state that has become evident over the last month is
far from something new. For most of its existence, the Nigerian state has been
under a dictatorship. While Buhari was elected through a very narrow form of
representative democracy, he was also the head of a military dictatorship in the
1980s. In fact, the Nigerian state has a notorious history of using brutal
oppression to hold the working class in check. One needs only think of how the
state unleashed the military onto people in the Niger Delta in the 1990s who were
opposing oil companies, such as Shell, due to the devastation they caused. During
that period, thousands of people were killed or disappeared.
The SARS unit is, therefore, not an exception, but the norm in terms of the
violence of state structures in Nigeria. Members of the SARS unit even routinely
rob people: between 2017 and 2020 there were 82 cases reported of members
involved in ill-treatment, torture and extortion. To understand why the
structures of the Nigerian state are so brutal, one has to understand how
capitalism, imperialism and class rule have functioned in a post-independence
Nigeria. Indeed, although the immediate cause for protests by youth (who are
targeted by the police) is the SARS unit, there are deeper reasons driving the
anger that fuelled the protests.
Class rule and the centrality of the state in wealth accumulation
Large sections of the Nigerian working class and peasantry - with coal mine
workers, railway workers, and women working in markets being central - played a
key role in the fight for Nigeria's independence, which was achieved in 1960. The
change that occurred, however, was limited. Colonial bureaucrats were removed,
however, the state that had been created by the colonial power - Britain - remained.
Although filled with new faces, class rule was maintained. A local elite joined
the ruling class, but the power of British and United States corporations was
left unchecked, and capitalism retained. The real winners of the struggle were
the nationalist leaders of the largest parties who entered into the state, along
with the corporations they were allied to. Indeed, upon independence, one of the
only ways that an aspirant local elite in Nigeria could join the ruling class and
accumulate wealth privately was through the state - due to colonialism there were
few Nigerian capitalists in 1960 (this has changed) and corporations from Britain
mainly dominated the local economy. As such, the state became a vehicle for
attaining wealth and through the state, often via corruption, the local Nigerian
elite built up its capital.
Thus, the history of colonialism and the fact that foreign companies dominated
the private economy meant a local elite needed state power to attain private
wealth during the first few decades of independence. It is through this that
local capitalists were largely built in Nigeria and it is the structural reason
why corruption within the Nigerian state - right down to the level of SARS - is a
defining feature of the country. It has been estimated that between 1960-2005 a
local elite within the state syphoned off US$20 trillion through corruption.
Blatant corruption amongst an elite within or close to the Nigerian state also
meant that softer options - such as cooption - to ensure the compliance of the
working class and peasantry were harder to deploy, as the failures of the state
system were so blatant. In this context, state violence was and has been one of
the main options of the ruling class to ensure their rule and protect their own
wealth and the interests of multinational corporations (especially oil companies)
they are allied with. This is the underlying reason why state violence, including
by SARS, is widespread.
Military coups and dictatorships have marked a large part of Nigeria's history -
having state power ensures private wealth can be accumulated, and to hold onto
state power, violence has often been deployed. While the state in all countries
is an instrument of the ruling class - it protects their wealth and private
property - in Nigeria, it is a particularly important path to accumulate wealth.
If one group of the elite loses state power, it undermines their ability to
accumulate wealth and thus holding onto state power by any means becomes vital -
which also means state violence has become endemic.
The protests were not just driven by SARS
Since the 1980s, the ruling elite and their multinational corporate allies have
driven through a brutal form of neoliberalism for their own benefit. Before the
implementation of neoliberalism, inequality was already rife, but it has now
become chronic. In 2019, Nigeria was ranked bottom of a list of 152 countries in
terms of measures taken to address inequality, such as protecting labour rights
and implementing progressive. The result is three out of every five Nigerians
live in poverty and 40% of people live in extreme poverty and survive on less
than US$1 dollar a day. The five richest Nigerians have a combined wealth of
US$29 billion.
The implementation of neoliberalism has also led to mass unemployment, especially
among youth and 27.1% of Nigerians are unemployed. When combined with
underemployment - due to a lack of 40 hour a week jobs - that figure jumps to
more than 50%. Adding to the powder keg is the reality that the country's
unemployment rate tripled in the last five years. Part of what led to the youth
being willing to undertake the anti-SARS protests is the discontent unemployment,
poverty and inequality are causing. The anti-SARS protests, therefore, need to be
seen in the context of a situation where the working class and peasantry are
under extreme pressure and the actions of SARS - and the corruption they
represent - was the spark.
Strength of the protests
The fact that the protests have been the largest in Nigeria's history is
promising. While the protests should not be viewed as consciously
anti-capitalist, it is only through struggle that people's consciousness can
change and the protests are opening up this possibility, even if it is a small at
the moment.
That the protests were also deliberately organised in a horizontal fashion was
extremely important. In this, people grappled with a better way of organising and
found one that was inclusive. This is vital in the context of Nigeria and the
rest of Africa. There is an unfortunate history of national liberation leaders
selling struggles out in Africa since the 1960s. The fact that the protests aimed
to ensure that there would not be a repeat of a leadership selling out, by making
it horizontal, was an important step forward for struggles in the country.
One tactic that has also historically been deployed by the ruling class in
Nigeria has been the use of ethnicity to divide and rule. In the 1960s this even
led to a brutal civil war. The fact that people of all ethnic backgrounds united
in protest, therefore, was vital and opens up a possibility of a unified
resistance around other issues such as inequality and poverty.
Weaknesses of the protests and possible way forward
One major weakness was that the protests did not have a unified progressive
ideology nor was there an in-depth critique of the role that the state plays,
including the police, under capitalism. Thus, if SARS is truly disbanded this
would be a victory, but the protests may stop at that point. In the face of state
violence, the protests have also tapered off. This may change, but tactics will
have to be developed if the protests re-emerge on how to deal with the inevitable
state violence that will come. This will be no easy task.
One major issue is that a section of the ruling class has also tried to use the
protests to raise their own profiles. Indeed, the protests have been a
cross-class alliance and the danger is that a section of the ruling class could
hijack the protests for their own political gain. Given Nigeria's history this
could be a real problem, and could see sections of the elite trying to use the
protests to get into the state for their own material ends; meaning little change
would come.
Another weakness is that no structures of direct democracy have emerged out of
the protests. Without these, it will be extremely difficult for the protests to
revive, or to become a mass movement that can challenge wider issues, such as how
capitalism in Nigeria is structured and how this is linked to endemic structural
corruption in the state. If the protests are to revive and take on a more radical
direction, a clear ideology would have to emerge through debate and reflection
amongst a significant section of the protestors. Structures to maintain the
movement based on direct democracy would also have to be built.
While this, for now, seems unlikely, being involved in struggle at least opens up
the possibility of it in the future. The positive is that the Nigerian working
class and peasantry are beginning to question - even if still only at the level
of SARS - and are beginning to mobilise. In here, hope lies.
Related Link:
https://www.ilrigsa.org.za/2020/11/10/nigeria-and-the-hope-of-the-endsars-protests/
https://www.anarkismo.net/article/32082
------------------------------
Message: 6
Stormy Petrel, the Anarchist Communist Group's theoretical and historical
magazine will be out next week. A bumper issue of 60 pages, it contains the
following: ---- Building Resilient Communities: The Challenges of Organising
Locally ---- Community Activism in South Essex ---- Mutual Aid during the
Pandemic ---- Charity or Solidarity? ---- Covid Mutual Aid: A Revolutionary
Critique ---- ACORN - no mighty oak! ---- Anarchist Communists, anti-fascism and
Anti-Fascism ---- Women: Working and Organising ---- What is Anarchist Communism?
(excerpt from Brian Morris's forthcoming book) ---- Poll Tax Rebellion - Danny
Burns ---- Book Reviews - Putting the poll tax rebellion in perspective
We Fight Fascists: The 43 Group and Their Forgotten Battle for Post-War Britain
Class Power on Zero Hours
McMindfulness: How Mindfulness Became the New Capitalist Spirituality
https://www.anarchistcommunism.org/2020/11/10/stormy-petrel-flying-next-week/
------------------------------
Message: 7
It is almost obligatory to start by asking him how he has endured these months of
confinement in Madrid. Have you used this time for a book that will come out in
the next few dates? ---- I have, in effect, been through confinement in Madrid.
And I have spent a good part of my time reading and writing. I have no choice but
to carry out work that was planned to be undertaken in the second part of the
year. The main one is a short booklet that aims to apply the perspective of
degrowth and the theory of collapse to the problems of emptied Iberia (I also
include Portugal, by the way). I guess it will see the light at the end of the
year. At some point I have pointed out that for me confinement has been what they
call an aid to creation, dispensed by our magnanimous government.
This time it has been a Pandemic, as it could have been any other human or
natural disaster. What is your opinion of the decisions taken by International
Organizations and by governments in the face of the spread of COVID-19?
I must confess, first of all, that I do not have very clear ideas regarding the
different models of treatment of the pandemic that have taken shape in some and
other places. I am thinking of Chinese and South Korean, Swedish, Portuguese and
Greek, and Spanish, French, British and North American, to rescue some examples.
In all places, I believe that the dramatic consequences of the budget reductions
applied to health and, in general, to social spending have been revealed. In
some, and this is a phenomenon that in my opinion has its interest, it has also
been shown that community-traditional societies spontaneously enjoy interesting
defense mechanisms. Also against the pandemic. Just remember that the scene of
many deaths in recent weeks - nursing homes - is unknown, or almost unknown, in
many of those societies, where the elderly live and die at home. Often, indeed,
with burdens that fall primarily on women.
Beyond the previous one, we must pay attention to the repressive pandemic. It
would be absurd for me to attribute to President Sánchez the design, through the
state of alarm, of laying the foundations of an ecofascist project. But those who
are above Sánchez, who pull the strings in the backroom, have surely taken good
note of the disciplined reaction of so many people immersed in a genuine exercise
of voluntary servitude. The balcony police are there to testify. I have said it
several times in recent times: I don't know what worries me more, if the alarm or
the State.
In a published cartoon, a tsunami reached a beach in the form of three waves,
each one larger. The first was Covid-19, the second the economic recession, and
the third, huge, climate change. Are we facing the prolegomena of the Collapse?
It is difficult for me to answer this question, all the more so since I do not
rule out that the powerful manage to restore most of the rules of the
pre-pandemic scenario, with elements, yes, of increasingly severe economic and
social repression. When, in 2016, I wrote a book entitled Collapse, the main
thesis I defended is that the latter would be primarily the product of the
combination of two major factors: climate change and the depletion of all energy
raw materials that we use today. I added, it is true, that the influence of other
factors that, apparently secondary, could nevertheless act as multipliers of
tensions should not be neglected. And in this regard, I mentioned several crises
- demographic, social, caregiving, financial - I spoke of the proliferation of
various types of violence,
My impression, which must be by force provisional, is that these secondary
factors have acquired an unusual weight, to the extent that the health pandemic
has been joined by others related to the social scenario, care and the drift of
the system financial, in such a way that a ball of ever greater dimensions has
been configured. I do not think it is excessive to say that this ball places us,
for many reasons, on the verge of collapse. With the addition, of course, that
with regard to the two main factors we have witnessed, provisionally, a decline
in its relief, hand in hand with reductions in pollution, a decline in the
consumption of fossil fuels and of a sudden stop in the touristification process.
The vignette you mention, in short, forces us to rethink crudely what our
priorities should be. In recent times I have recalled several times that,
according to an article published in Forbes magazine, as a result of the decrease
in pollution in China, 77,000 people will save their lives, a figure twenty times
higher than the officially identified deaths in China. that country due to the
effect of the coronavirus. It seems to me that the data gives food for thought.
We have seen the old "national" problems emerge as never before: territoriality,
authoritarianism, social differences, the dismantling of the public sector and
specifically of Healthcare. Do we libertarians have to provide both a theoretical
and a practical answer here and now, without further delay?
The three main foundations of this response are the usual ones: the deployment of
networks of mutual support -which by the way have spread, fortunately
spontaneously, in a very remarkable way-, the constant practice of direct action
and, finally, self-management. It cannot be emphasized enough that it is not
enough to defend "the public," which in and of itself can be, unfortunately, a
perverse tool in the service of the powerful. We must defend the self-managed and
socialized public. And you have to work, it would be more, with ordinary people.
https://kaosenlared.net/carlos-taibo-no-se-que-me-inquieta-mas-si-la-alarma-o-el-estado/
https://www.cgt-lkn.org/blog/archivos/8990
------------------------------
[machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
On Thursday 12/11/2020 we carried out interventions in two stores of the
supermarket chain Lidl in Thessaloniki, in response to the criminal indifference
of the employer for the safety and lives of its employees, after the confirmation
of a Cov-19 case in the chain's warehouses: ---- ii) we attacked and broke the
facade of the Lidl store at 102 Papanastasiou Alexandrou Street in Kato Toumpa
---- ii) we intervened by throwing paint on the facade of the Lidl store at 56
Olympiados Street in the city center. ---- We will not allow the pandemic to
become an occasion for the further material devaluation of our class. ---- >From
the first months of the pandemic, in the spring, the bosses were discouraged from
taking the slightest measure of protection for the workers, leaving them exposed
to the virus, clearly showing how expendable they considered their workforce and
that they would not hesitate to no way to sacrifice even the lives of employees
and their families on the altar of profit.
In particular, Lidl did not even provide the basic health protection measures to
the employees. In fact, during the first period they were forbidden to wear a
mask, which they themselves supplied at their own expense, so as not to spoil the
false image of the forced smiling employee. Based on the health instructions of
EODY, the employer is obliged to provide the employees with masks. Lidl, however,
does not provide masks to employees, and the necessary glazing was never
installed at the checkout. And as turnover increases, work intensification
increases and employees dwindle.
The culmination came in the last days, after the confirmation of a case in the
company's warehouses, the employer refused to conduct a test on the 150 employees
working in the warehouses, without any substantial health protection measures.
With the coverage they provide to the employer and the "protocols" of EODY and of
course... none of the 150 employees who worked together with the confirmed case
was put in preventive quarantine! In fact, the well-known candy of "individual
responsibility" was mobilized and the employer considered it reasonable for the
employees to pay for the tests themselves from the meager wages he gives them.
All this, of course, does not come as a surprise, considering the consistent
practices of the supermarket chains and especially that of Lidl, which has even
been awarded as the best employer (!). Numerous complaints about employer
terrorism, ghost overtime, ban on (certain by law) breaks, depressing
environment, bullying, ban on social interaction with colleagues in the store and
all this to avoid dismissal. Hundreds are the redundancies of the last years,
with the most glaring example being the dismissal of a cancer patient with the
excuse that he contradicted a client, but also the resignations due to the
miserable conditions.
At the moment when all we are allowed to do is go to work (with a suffocatingly
full bus), we are blamed solely for the spread of the virus, while the bosses
themselves are the ones who expose us to the virus, always with blessings of the
state. The pandemic is portrayed as a unique opportunity for the state and
capital to exhaust every opportunity to infringe on labor rights. The 400 euros /
month of the suspension of work and the release of the dismissals are
supplemented by a bill-abortion that is submitted in the next period and violates
the 8-hour and the possibility of strike, rights, that is, won by struggles and
blood of workers. The government, in the service of capital, in the face of the
huge health and economic crisis, does not hesitate at all and attacks the social
base in every way, exposing in the eyes of the working people the barbarity of
the class nature that governs the capitalist beast. The slogan of the workers in
the supermarkets of France could not be more accurate: "Your profits, our dead!"
We are not beggars, nor do we owe it to the bosses that we sell our labor to make
them rich. For all of us who have no other means of survival, this is all we have
to sell. Their blatant demands and employer impunity, which are exacerbated
during the pandemic, can only be stopped by the class self-organization and the
militant trade union action of the workers themselves. Our answer to the bosses
is that in every attack, the working class will always find ways to
counterattack, until it abolishes the privileges and powers of the parasitic
capitalist oligarchy.
It is time to counterattack. Let not let the intensification, the degrading
behaviors and the degradation of the value of our own life become the rule for
all of us.
DIRECT FINANCIAL SUPPORT OF THE WORLD OF WORK AND effective measures to shield
HEALTH AGENCIES
DO NOT allow any circumvention LABOR OUR RIGHTS
ORGANIZATION AND STRUGGLE IN AREAS OF WORK, THE ERGODOSIAS break the TSAMPOUKAS
SOLIDARITY WEAPON OF LABOR, WAR WAR OF BOSS
Freedom Initiative of Thessaloniki (member of the Anarchist Federation)
e-mail contact:lib_thess@hotmail.com
blog: libertasalonica.wordpress.com
??. Precisely because the state management of the pandemic is consistent with
repression instead of sanitary measures and with absolutely no support of the
NSS, at the same time that huge sums are scattered in the canals and on long
walks, because our bosses have found in the pandemic a communication "perfect"
occasion, to trample us even more, because the state has seen in the pandemic the
best opportunity, to pass anti-labor laws that will further crush our order, such
as the bankruptcy code and the new labor bill, which is why we, Workers,
unemployed and unemployed, we have no choice but to take to the streets on
November 17, to finally demand that the state stop walking around us at this
critical juncture,hiring more and more cops, while we do not have doctors and
ICU, to demand that he stop exploiting the pandemic, to seize even our first home
and to trample on our last labor rights.
NOVEMBER 17 ALL AND EVERYONE ON THE STREETS OF THE RACE RESPECTING THE NECESSARY
HEALTH PROTECTION MEASURES
https://libertasalonica.wordpress.com/2020/11/13/
------------------------------
Message: 2
Appeared at the end of the 2000s in the United States in a context of
recomposition of the far-right and favored by the election of Donald Trump, the
Alt-right has today imposed itself on the American political scene. On the
occasion of the crisis born from the pandemic, it is now setting out to conquer
Europe. ---- The expression Alt-right, for alternative right, was coined in 2008
by white supremacist activist Richard B. Spencer. Openly racist and close to
neo-Nazi circles, Spencer advocates the "ethno-nationalist", campaigns for women
to be confined to the domestic sphere, and if he is pro-abortion it is only to
limit the births of black children and latinos. During Obama's presidency, the
Alt-Right gained popularity by using the revengeful rhetoric of the emasculated
white man, frustrated at no longer being able to quietly express his sexism,
racism and homophobia. The election of Trump, the first promoter of the ideas
carried by this new far-right, will accelerate its deployment.
Charlottesville, August 2017
Wikipedia
She will gain popularity following the "Unite the Right" demonstrations that she
co-organized in Charlottesville in August 2017 to protest against the withdrawal
of a statute from Confederate General Robert Lee, and which mixed neo-Nazis,
Klanists and Alt- right. Violent clashes broke out, leaving around thirty injured
and killing a demonstrator, run over by the vehicle of a white supremacist
deliberately rushing at the counter-demonstrators. Trump sends back to back the
violence of the two camps before recovering and specifying that among the pro-Lee
demonstrators, there was not only the Klu-Klux-Klan, but also and especially good
people very good.
An epidemic of racist and conspicuous speeches
Since then, armed "self-defense" groups have multiplied and acted as auxiliaries
for law enforcement, such as the Patriot Prayer, founded in 2016, a pro-Trump
group active on the west coast of the United States. Under the guise of defending
freedom of expression, he seeks physical confrontation against anti-fascist
activists and more generally what they call the Alt-left (anarchists and
anti-fas). The Boogaloo Boys, for their part, advocate the constitution of armed
militias with a view to provoking a second civil war. You can recognize them by
their colorful Hawaiian-style shirts and heavy arsenal. Very active in
anti-containment demonstrations, the Boogaloo mix patriotism, virilism and
conspiracy.
Alongside these active groups is the QAnon movement, which supplies the sites and
forums frequented by the Alt-right with conspiratorial discourse. According to
his followers, President Trump is waging a secret war against elites (government,
financial circles and the media), who are involved in a satanist and pedophile
cabal on a global scale. Initially essentially American, this movement is now
reaching Europe where, on the occasion of the Covid crisis, its conspiracy
theories are attracting more and more people lacking benchmarks. More than ever,
in order to fight against the viruses of the extreme right and of conspiracy, it
is essential to develop everywhere the only valid antidote: a radical
anti-fascism backed by class solidarity.
David (UCL Grand Paris Sud)
https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Etats-unis-l-Alt-Right-contamine-l-Europe
------------------------------
Message: 3
POLYTECHNIC 2020: THE WORLD OF THE RACE WILL BREAK THE PROHIBITIONS ---- ON
NOVEMBER 17 THE ROAD WILL BREAK THE TERROR ---- STATE AND CAPITAL SOW DEATH ----
TO DEFEND LIFE AND HEALTH WITH OUR STRUGGLES ---- "The dead write with the blood
to remember the living" ---- In conditions of health, economic and social crisis,
state bans, generalized terrorism and repression, the movement is called to
defend its memory, its dead, its very history and existence. In conditions of
extreme outbreak of the pandemic and collapse of the NSS due to the timeless
criminal policies of the state (which even during the 10 months of the pandemic
did not take any substantial measures to strengthen it) and at a time when
hundreds of fellow human beings are fighting for their lives under unbearable
conditions, we are called to defend life and health with our struggles.
47 years after the uprising of the Polytechnic, we are called to catch again the
thread of the uprisings, the conflict social and class struggle, the social
disobedience and disobedience to the state demands. 47 years later, the
experiences, the lessons, the spirit of rebellion, the struggle, the solidarity,
the resistance, the conflict, the dynamic initiative and action must break the
generalized fear, the silence, the inaction and the submission.
Uprisings are not laws, but arise in specific circumstances from the action of
the militants, from the initiatives they take to intensify the social and class
struggle, from the escalation of their struggle against the barbarity of the
state and capitalism. From movements that create cracks and disturb the normality
of social silence and submission that the authorities are trying to impose.
The prohibition of the march 17 thNovember and the central role it takes through
the statements of prominent government officials and ministers (at the same time
that the pandemic is on the rise and the NSS is collapsing) demonstrates in the
most characteristic way the strategy and policy of the government, both in terms
of symbolism, The state is legally and repressive against the social storms that
can be caused by the accumulated anger against the anti-social-anti-labor
policies that are applied. The implementation of the preventive
counter-insurgency plan is intensifying during the pandemic period. The vast
majority of society is expendable. All that needs to work is the capitalist
machine and not to disturb the "normality". Resistances and struggles must be put
in plaster. Anything that deviates from and challenges what the state demands
must be hit. The uprisings belong to the past and the only "realistic" present is
the dystopia of the totalitarianism of the state and capital.
In the midst of a pandemic and the spread of the virus, the criminal, parasitic
and anti-social nature of the state emerges in every way, which is indifferent to
human life and the vast majority of the population and is only interested in
maximizing the profits of the bosses. The only thing the rulers want is to save
the economy and "return to capitalist normalcy." The murderous policy of the
state does not include any substantial measures to support the NSS and to stop
the spread of the pandemic, except for poor communication tricks and poor
ideologies of individual responsibility. The only "right" that bosses recognize
in the midst of a health crisis is that of production and consumption. The vast
majority of society should be stacked in the workplace without any measures, to
be trampled on in the MMM and to be left without basic medical care, while at the
same time cops will be hired, military equipment will be purchased and the "big
walks" will take place with fiestas of millions. At the same time, rallies,
demonstrations and any kind of mobilization are targeted as health bombs.
In this year's mobilizations for the Polytechnic - and in the midst of
generalized state bans and a health crisis - the movement must break the ban in
practice. . To act as a catalyst for broader social processes that will put more
and more people on the road. With stubbornness, courage, rage and daring to set
up roadblocks of resistance and solidarity in the total attack of the rulers.
Against the system that only has to offer to the social majority is poverty,
misery, repression, exploitation and death to advance the struggle for life and
dignity. To organize social self-defense and class counterattack. To find
ourselves with all our forces in the hearths of the social and class war.
SOLIDARITY TO THE ARRESTED IN THE EMPTYED POLYTECHNIC AND THE RECTORATE
SOCIAL AND CLASS REVOLUTIONS SHOW THE ROAD
BLOOD IS NOT WATER - MEMORY IS NOT GARBAGE
MATCHES ARE NOT PROHIBITED
NOT A STEP BACK TO STATE TERRORISM AND SUPPRESSION
WE WANT EVERYTHING FOR EVERYONE: HEALTH, NUTRITION, MEDICAL CARE, HOUSING AND
INSURANCE
COURSE FROM THE ANNEX: TUESDAY NOVEMBER 17 AT 18.00
* We observe all measures of individual and collective self-protection
anarchist group "bad horse"
member of the Anarchist Political Organization
https://ipposd.wordpress.com/author/maxno/
------------------------------
Message: 4
A video went viral on social media platforms on October 3, outlining how the
notorious Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) unit of the Nigerian police force
shot a young man, dumped him at the side of the road and stole his car. What
followed was three weeks of protests by young people against such police
brutality and the corruption that defines the state; initially via social media,
#EndSARS, and later in towns and cities across Nigeria. ---- Needless to say, the
protests continued and grew into the largest in the history of Nigeria. As the
protests grew, the state changed tactics and responded to the escalation with
outright violence. Part of this involved the state deploying thugs to attack
protestors in order to try and intimidate people off the streets. When this
failed to produce the state's desired result, it deployed the military and
implemented a curfew in a number of cities. By October 20, however, the protests
had spread across Nigeria. Some of the assets of the Nigerian ruling class were
also targeted during these protests and the largest and most lucrative toll road
in country, Lekki, in Lagos, was blockaded. On that day the military attempted to
brutally end the protests and shot dead 12 people at the Lekki tollgate.
Nigeria and the Hope of the #EndSARS Protests
Shawn Hattingh
A video went viral on social media platforms on October 3, outlining how the
notorious Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) unit of the Nigerian police force
shot a young man, dumped him at the side of the road and stole his car. What
followed was three weeks of protests by young people against such police
brutality and the corruption that defines the state; initially via social media,
#EndSARS, and later in towns and cities across Nigeria.
During these protests the Nigerian state used various tactics to either suppress
the protests or to try and demobilise them through insincere "concessions". To
begin with, the ruling class, the state it controls and its head, President
Muhammadu Buhari, attempted to quell the protests through window dressing.
Inspector General of Police Mohammed Adamu promised on October 11 that the SARS
unit would be disbanded and supposedly replaced with a new unit called SWAT
(Special Weapons and Tactics). This was an obvious lie, as the same personnel
that formed part of SARS would form part of SWAT. Over the last several years the
government has made similar announcements resulting in no actual change.
Needless to say, the protests continued and grew into the largest in the history
of Nigeria. As the protests grew, the state changed tactics and responded to the
escalation with outright violence. Part of this involved the state deploying
thugs to attack protestors in order to try and intimidate people off the streets.
When this failed to produce the state's desired result, it deployed the military
and implemented a curfew in a number of cities. By October 20, however, the
protests had spread across Nigeria. Some of the assets of the Nigerian ruling
class were also targeted during these protests and the largest and most lucrative
toll road in country, Lekki, in Lagos, was blockaded. On that day the military
attempted to brutally end the protests and shot dead 12 people at the Lekki tollgate.
The Nigerian state has a long history of violence
The violence of the Nigerian state that has become evident over the last month is
far from something new. For most of its existence, the Nigerian state has been
under a dictatorship. While Buhari was elected through a very narrow form of
representative democracy, he was also the head of a military dictatorship in the
1980s. In fact, the Nigerian state has a notorious history of using brutal
oppression to hold the working class in check. One needs only think of how the
state unleashed the military onto people in the Niger Delta in the 1990s who were
opposing oil companies, such as Shell, due to the devastation they caused. During
that period, thousands of people were killed or disappeared.
The SARS unit is, therefore, not an exception, but the norm in terms of the
violence of state structures in Nigeria. Members of the SARS unit even routinely
rob people: between 2017 and 2020 there were 82 cases reported of members
involved in ill-treatment, torture and extortion. To understand why the
structures of the Nigerian state are so brutal, one has to understand how
capitalism, imperialism and class rule have functioned in a post-independence
Nigeria. Indeed, although the immediate cause for protests by youth (who are
targeted by the police) is the SARS unit, there are deeper reasons driving the
anger that fuelled the protests.
Class rule and the centrality of the state in wealth accumulation
Large sections of the Nigerian working class and peasantry - with coal mine
workers, railway workers, and women working in markets being central - played a
key role in the fight for Nigeria's independence, which was achieved in 1960. The
change that occurred, however, was limited. Colonial bureaucrats were removed,
however, the state that had been created by the colonial power - Britain - remained.
Although filled with new faces, class rule was maintained. A local elite joined
the ruling class, but the power of British and United States corporations was
left unchecked, and capitalism retained. The real winners of the struggle were
the nationalist leaders of the largest parties who entered into the state, along
with the corporations they were allied to. Indeed, upon independence, one of the
only ways that an aspirant local elite in Nigeria could join the ruling class and
accumulate wealth privately was through the state - due to colonialism there were
few Nigerian capitalists in 1960 (this has changed) and corporations from Britain
mainly dominated the local economy. As such, the state became a vehicle for
attaining wealth and through the state, often via corruption, the local Nigerian
elite built up its capital.
Thus, the history of colonialism and the fact that foreign companies dominated
the private economy meant a local elite needed state power to attain private
wealth during the first few decades of independence. It is through this that
local capitalists were largely built in Nigeria and it is the structural reason
why corruption within the Nigerian state - right down to the level of SARS - is a
defining feature of the country. It has been estimated that between 1960-2005 a
local elite within the state syphoned off US$20 trillion through corruption.
Blatant corruption amongst an elite within or close to the Nigerian state also
meant that softer options - such as cooption - to ensure the compliance of the
working class and peasantry were harder to deploy, as the failures of the state
system were so blatant. In this context, state violence was and has been one of
the main options of the ruling class to ensure their rule and protect their own
wealth and the interests of multinational corporations (especially oil companies)
they are allied with. This is the underlying reason why state violence, including
by SARS, is widespread.
Military coups and dictatorships have marked a large part of Nigeria's history -
having state power ensures private wealth can be accumulated, and to hold onto
state power, violence has often been deployed. While the state in all countries
is an instrument of the ruling class - it protects their wealth and private
property - in Nigeria, it is a particularly important path to accumulate wealth.
If one group of the elite loses state power, it undermines their ability to
accumulate wealth and thus holding onto state power by any means becomes vital -
which also means state violence has become endemic.
The protests were not just driven by SARS
Since the 1980s, the ruling elite and their multinational corporate allies have
driven through a brutal form of neoliberalism for their own benefit. Before the
implementation of neoliberalism, inequality was already rife, but it has now
become chronic. In 2019, Nigeria was ranked bottom of a list of 152 countries in
terms of measures taken to address inequality, such as protecting labour rights
and implementing progressive. The result is three out of every five Nigerians
live in poverty and 40% of people live in extreme poverty and survive on less
than US$1 dollar a day. The five richest Nigerians have a combined wealth of
US$29 billion.
The implementation of neoliberalism has also led to mass unemployment, especially
among youth and 27.1% of Nigerians are unemployed. When combined with
underemployment - due to a lack of 40 hour a week jobs - that figure jumps to
more than 50%. Adding to the powder keg is the reality that the country's
unemployment rate tripled in the last five years. Part of what led to the youth
being willing to undertake the anti-SARS protests is the discontent unemployment,
poverty and inequality are causing. The anti-SARS protests, therefore, need to be
seen in the context of a situation where the working class and peasantry are
under extreme pressure and the actions of SARS - and the corruption they
represent - was the spark.
Strength of the protests
The fact that the protests have been the largest in Nigeria's history is
promising. While the protests should not be viewed as consciously
anti-capitalist, it is only through struggle that people's consciousness can
change and the protests are opening up this possibility, even if it is a small at
the moment.
That the protests were also deliberately organised in a horizontal fashion was
extremely important. In this, people grappled with a better way of organising and
found one that was inclusive. This is vital in the context of Nigeria and the
rest of Africa. There is an unfortunate history of national liberation leaders
selling struggles out in Africa since the 1960s. The fact that the protests aimed
to ensure that there would not be a repeat of a leadership selling out, by making
it horizontal, was an important step forward for struggles in the country.
One tactic that has also historically been deployed by the ruling class in
Nigeria has been the use of ethnicity to divide and rule. In the 1960s this even
led to a brutal civil war. The fact that people of all ethnic backgrounds united
in protest, therefore, was vital and opens up a possibility of a unified
resistance around other issues such as inequality and poverty.
Weaknesses of the protests and possible way forward
One major weakness was that the protests did not have a unified progressive
ideology nor was there an in-depth critique of the role that the state plays,
including the police, under capitalism. Thus, if SARS is truly disbanded this
would be a victory, but the protests may stop at that point. In the face of state
violence, the protests have also tapered off. This may change, but tactics will
have to be developed if the protests re-emerge on how to deal with the inevitable
state violence that will come. This will be no easy task.
One major issue is that a section of the ruling class has also tried to use the
protests to raise their own profiles. Indeed, the protests have been a
cross-class alliance and the danger is that a section of the ruling class could
hijack the protests for their own political gain. Given Nigeria's history this
could be a real problem, and could see sections of the elite trying to use the
protests to get into the state for their own material ends; meaning little change
would come.
Another weakness is that no structures of direct democracy have emerged out of
the protests. Without these, it will be extremely difficult for the protests to
revive, or to become a mass movement that can challenge wider issues, such as how
capitalism in Nigeria is structured and how this is linked to endemic structural
corruption in the state. If the protests are to revive and take on a more radical
direction, a clear ideology would have to emerge through debate and reflection
amongst a significant section of the protestors. Structures to maintain the
movement based on direct democracy would also have to be built.
While this, for now, seems unlikely, being involved in struggle at least opens up
the possibility of it in the future. The positive is that the Nigerian working
class and peasantry are beginning to question - even if still only at the level
of SARS - and are beginning to mobilise. In here, hope lies.
https://zabalaza.net/2020/11/14/nigeria-and-the-hope-of-the-endsars-protests/
------------------------------
Message: 5
A video went viral on social media platforms on October 3, outlining how the
notorious Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) unit of the Nigerian police force
shot a young man, dumped him at the side of the road and stole his car. What
followed was three weeks of protests by young people against such police
brutality and the corruption that defines the state; initially via social media,
#EndSARS, and later in towns and cities across Nigeria. ---- During these
protests the Nigerian state used various tactics to either suppress the protests
or to try and demobilise them through insincere "concessions". To begin with, the
ruling class, the state it controls and its head, President Muhammadu Buhari,
attempted to quell the protests through window dressing. Inspector General of
Police Mohammed Adamu promised on October 11 that the SARS unit would be
disbanded and supposedly replaced with a new unit called SWAT (Special Weapons
and Tactics). This was an obvious lie, as the same personnel that formed part of
SARS would form part of SWAT. Over the last several years the government has made
similar announcements resulting in no actual change.
Needless to say, the protests continued and grew into the largest in the history
of Nigeria. As the protests grew, the state changed tactics and responded to the
escalation with outright violence. Part of this involved the state deploying
thugs to attack protestors in order to try and intimidate people off the streets.
When this failed to produce the state's desired result, it deployed the military
and implemented a curfew in a number of cities. By October 20, however, the
protests had spread across Nigeria. Some of the assets of the Nigerian ruling
class were also targeted during these protests and the largest and most lucrative
toll road in country, Lekki, in Lagos, was blockaded. On that day the military
attempted to brutally end the protests and shot dead 12 people at the Lekki tollgate.
The Nigerian state has a long history of violence
The violence of the Nigerian state that has become evident over the last month is
far from something new. For most of its existence, the Nigerian state has been
under a dictatorship. While Buhari was elected through a very narrow form of
representative democracy, he was also the head of a military dictatorship in the
1980s. In fact, the Nigerian state has a notorious history of using brutal
oppression to hold the working class in check. One needs only think of how the
state unleashed the military onto people in the Niger Delta in the 1990s who were
opposing oil companies, such as Shell, due to the devastation they caused. During
that period, thousands of people were killed or disappeared.
The SARS unit is, therefore, not an exception, but the norm in terms of the
violence of state structures in Nigeria. Members of the SARS unit even routinely
rob people: between 2017 and 2020 there were 82 cases reported of members
involved in ill-treatment, torture and extortion. To understand why the
structures of the Nigerian state are so brutal, one has to understand how
capitalism, imperialism and class rule have functioned in a post-independence
Nigeria. Indeed, although the immediate cause for protests by youth (who are
targeted by the police) is the SARS unit, there are deeper reasons driving the
anger that fuelled the protests.
Class rule and the centrality of the state in wealth accumulation
Large sections of the Nigerian working class and peasantry - with coal mine
workers, railway workers, and women working in markets being central - played a
key role in the fight for Nigeria's independence, which was achieved in 1960. The
change that occurred, however, was limited. Colonial bureaucrats were removed,
however, the state that had been created by the colonial power - Britain - remained.
Although filled with new faces, class rule was maintained. A local elite joined
the ruling class, but the power of British and United States corporations was
left unchecked, and capitalism retained. The real winners of the struggle were
the nationalist leaders of the largest parties who entered into the state, along
with the corporations they were allied to. Indeed, upon independence, one of the
only ways that an aspirant local elite in Nigeria could join the ruling class and
accumulate wealth privately was through the state - due to colonialism there were
few Nigerian capitalists in 1960 (this has changed) and corporations from Britain
mainly dominated the local economy. As such, the state became a vehicle for
attaining wealth and through the state, often via corruption, the local Nigerian
elite built up its capital.
Thus, the history of colonialism and the fact that foreign companies dominated
the private economy meant a local elite needed state power to attain private
wealth during the first few decades of independence. It is through this that
local capitalists were largely built in Nigeria and it is the structural reason
why corruption within the Nigerian state - right down to the level of SARS - is a
defining feature of the country. It has been estimated that between 1960-2005 a
local elite within the state syphoned off US$20 trillion through corruption.
Blatant corruption amongst an elite within or close to the Nigerian state also
meant that softer options - such as cooption - to ensure the compliance of the
working class and peasantry were harder to deploy, as the failures of the state
system were so blatant. In this context, state violence was and has been one of
the main options of the ruling class to ensure their rule and protect their own
wealth and the interests of multinational corporations (especially oil companies)
they are allied with. This is the underlying reason why state violence, including
by SARS, is widespread.
Military coups and dictatorships have marked a large part of Nigeria's history -
having state power ensures private wealth can be accumulated, and to hold onto
state power, violence has often been deployed. While the state in all countries
is an instrument of the ruling class - it protects their wealth and private
property - in Nigeria, it is a particularly important path to accumulate wealth.
If one group of the elite loses state power, it undermines their ability to
accumulate wealth and thus holding onto state power by any means becomes vital -
which also means state violence has become endemic.
The protests were not just driven by SARS
Since the 1980s, the ruling elite and their multinational corporate allies have
driven through a brutal form of neoliberalism for their own benefit. Before the
implementation of neoliberalism, inequality was already rife, but it has now
become chronic. In 2019, Nigeria was ranked bottom of a list of 152 countries in
terms of measures taken to address inequality, such as protecting labour rights
and implementing progressive. The result is three out of every five Nigerians
live in poverty and 40% of people live in extreme poverty and survive on less
than US$1 dollar a day. The five richest Nigerians have a combined wealth of
US$29 billion.
The implementation of neoliberalism has also led to mass unemployment, especially
among youth and 27.1% of Nigerians are unemployed. When combined with
underemployment - due to a lack of 40 hour a week jobs - that figure jumps to
more than 50%. Adding to the powder keg is the reality that the country's
unemployment rate tripled in the last five years. Part of what led to the youth
being willing to undertake the anti-SARS protests is the discontent unemployment,
poverty and inequality are causing. The anti-SARS protests, therefore, need to be
seen in the context of a situation where the working class and peasantry are
under extreme pressure and the actions of SARS - and the corruption they
represent - was the spark.
Strength of the protests
The fact that the protests have been the largest in Nigeria's history is
promising. While the protests should not be viewed as consciously
anti-capitalist, it is only through struggle that people's consciousness can
change and the protests are opening up this possibility, even if it is a small at
the moment.
That the protests were also deliberately organised in a horizontal fashion was
extremely important. In this, people grappled with a better way of organising and
found one that was inclusive. This is vital in the context of Nigeria and the
rest of Africa. There is an unfortunate history of national liberation leaders
selling struggles out in Africa since the 1960s. The fact that the protests aimed
to ensure that there would not be a repeat of a leadership selling out, by making
it horizontal, was an important step forward for struggles in the country.
One tactic that has also historically been deployed by the ruling class in
Nigeria has been the use of ethnicity to divide and rule. In the 1960s this even
led to a brutal civil war. The fact that people of all ethnic backgrounds united
in protest, therefore, was vital and opens up a possibility of a unified
resistance around other issues such as inequality and poverty.
Weaknesses of the protests and possible way forward
One major weakness was that the protests did not have a unified progressive
ideology nor was there an in-depth critique of the role that the state plays,
including the police, under capitalism. Thus, if SARS is truly disbanded this
would be a victory, but the protests may stop at that point. In the face of state
violence, the protests have also tapered off. This may change, but tactics will
have to be developed if the protests re-emerge on how to deal with the inevitable
state violence that will come. This will be no easy task.
One major issue is that a section of the ruling class has also tried to use the
protests to raise their own profiles. Indeed, the protests have been a
cross-class alliance and the danger is that a section of the ruling class could
hijack the protests for their own political gain. Given Nigeria's history this
could be a real problem, and could see sections of the elite trying to use the
protests to get into the state for their own material ends; meaning little change
would come.
Another weakness is that no structures of direct democracy have emerged out of
the protests. Without these, it will be extremely difficult for the protests to
revive, or to become a mass movement that can challenge wider issues, such as how
capitalism in Nigeria is structured and how this is linked to endemic structural
corruption in the state. If the protests are to revive and take on a more radical
direction, a clear ideology would have to emerge through debate and reflection
amongst a significant section of the protestors. Structures to maintain the
movement based on direct democracy would also have to be built.
While this, for now, seems unlikely, being involved in struggle at least opens up
the possibility of it in the future. The positive is that the Nigerian working
class and peasantry are beginning to question - even if still only at the level
of SARS - and are beginning to mobilise. In here, hope lies.
Related Link:
https://www.ilrigsa.org.za/2020/11/10/nigeria-and-the-hope-of-the-endsars-protests/
https://www.anarkismo.net/article/32082
------------------------------
Message: 6
Stormy Petrel, the Anarchist Communist Group's theoretical and historical
magazine will be out next week. A bumper issue of 60 pages, it contains the
following: ---- Building Resilient Communities: The Challenges of Organising
Locally ---- Community Activism in South Essex ---- Mutual Aid during the
Pandemic ---- Charity or Solidarity? ---- Covid Mutual Aid: A Revolutionary
Critique ---- ACORN - no mighty oak! ---- Anarchist Communists, anti-fascism and
Anti-Fascism ---- Women: Working and Organising ---- What is Anarchist Communism?
(excerpt from Brian Morris's forthcoming book) ---- Poll Tax Rebellion - Danny
Burns ---- Book Reviews - Putting the poll tax rebellion in perspective
We Fight Fascists: The 43 Group and Their Forgotten Battle for Post-War Britain
Class Power on Zero Hours
McMindfulness: How Mindfulness Became the New Capitalist Spirituality
https://www.anarchistcommunism.org/2020/11/10/stormy-petrel-flying-next-week/
------------------------------
Message: 7
It is almost obligatory to start by asking him how he has endured these months of
confinement in Madrid. Have you used this time for a book that will come out in
the next few dates? ---- I have, in effect, been through confinement in Madrid.
And I have spent a good part of my time reading and writing. I have no choice but
to carry out work that was planned to be undertaken in the second part of the
year. The main one is a short booklet that aims to apply the perspective of
degrowth and the theory of collapse to the problems of emptied Iberia (I also
include Portugal, by the way). I guess it will see the light at the end of the
year. At some point I have pointed out that for me confinement has been what they
call an aid to creation, dispensed by our magnanimous government.
This time it has been a Pandemic, as it could have been any other human or
natural disaster. What is your opinion of the decisions taken by International
Organizations and by governments in the face of the spread of COVID-19?
I must confess, first of all, that I do not have very clear ideas regarding the
different models of treatment of the pandemic that have taken shape in some and
other places. I am thinking of Chinese and South Korean, Swedish, Portuguese and
Greek, and Spanish, French, British and North American, to rescue some examples.
In all places, I believe that the dramatic consequences of the budget reductions
applied to health and, in general, to social spending have been revealed. In
some, and this is a phenomenon that in my opinion has its interest, it has also
been shown that community-traditional societies spontaneously enjoy interesting
defense mechanisms. Also against the pandemic. Just remember that the scene of
many deaths in recent weeks - nursing homes - is unknown, or almost unknown, in
many of those societies, where the elderly live and die at home. Often, indeed,
with burdens that fall primarily on women.
Beyond the previous one, we must pay attention to the repressive pandemic. It
would be absurd for me to attribute to President Sánchez the design, through the
state of alarm, of laying the foundations of an ecofascist project. But those who
are above Sánchez, who pull the strings in the backroom, have surely taken good
note of the disciplined reaction of so many people immersed in a genuine exercise
of voluntary servitude. The balcony police are there to testify. I have said it
several times in recent times: I don't know what worries me more, if the alarm or
the State.
In a published cartoon, a tsunami reached a beach in the form of three waves,
each one larger. The first was Covid-19, the second the economic recession, and
the third, huge, climate change. Are we facing the prolegomena of the Collapse?
It is difficult for me to answer this question, all the more so since I do not
rule out that the powerful manage to restore most of the rules of the
pre-pandemic scenario, with elements, yes, of increasingly severe economic and
social repression. When, in 2016, I wrote a book entitled Collapse, the main
thesis I defended is that the latter would be primarily the product of the
combination of two major factors: climate change and the depletion of all energy
raw materials that we use today. I added, it is true, that the influence of other
factors that, apparently secondary, could nevertheless act as multipliers of
tensions should not be neglected. And in this regard, I mentioned several crises
- demographic, social, caregiving, financial - I spoke of the proliferation of
various types of violence,
My impression, which must be by force provisional, is that these secondary
factors have acquired an unusual weight, to the extent that the health pandemic
has been joined by others related to the social scenario, care and the drift of
the system financial, in such a way that a ball of ever greater dimensions has
been configured. I do not think it is excessive to say that this ball places us,
for many reasons, on the verge of collapse. With the addition, of course, that
with regard to the two main factors we have witnessed, provisionally, a decline
in its relief, hand in hand with reductions in pollution, a decline in the
consumption of fossil fuels and of a sudden stop in the touristification process.
The vignette you mention, in short, forces us to rethink crudely what our
priorities should be. In recent times I have recalled several times that,
according to an article published in Forbes magazine, as a result of the decrease
in pollution in China, 77,000 people will save their lives, a figure twenty times
higher than the officially identified deaths in China. that country due to the
effect of the coronavirus. It seems to me that the data gives food for thought.
We have seen the old "national" problems emerge as never before: territoriality,
authoritarianism, social differences, the dismantling of the public sector and
specifically of Healthcare. Do we libertarians have to provide both a theoretical
and a practical answer here and now, without further delay?
The three main foundations of this response are the usual ones: the deployment of
networks of mutual support -which by the way have spread, fortunately
spontaneously, in a very remarkable way-, the constant practice of direct action
and, finally, self-management. It cannot be emphasized enough that it is not
enough to defend "the public," which in and of itself can be, unfortunately, a
perverse tool in the service of the powerful. We must defend the self-managed and
socialized public. And you have to work, it would be more, with ordinary people.
https://kaosenlared.net/carlos-taibo-no-se-que-me-inquieta-mas-si-la-alarma-o-el-estado/
https://www.cgt-lkn.org/blog/archivos/8990
------------------------------
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