#WORLD #WORLDWIDE #PORTUGAL #ANARCHISM #LIBRARY #News #Journal #Update - en) Portugal (COPOAP): Letter to Youth and Students (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 The youth of Portuguese territory has been suffering a wave of successive attacks

that make their present and future precarious, and they need a firm response on
their part to reverse their situation. To do so, it is not enough to recognize
these attacks, but also to organize the offensive, on a demanding, economic and
social level, but also in its political self-organization, two very different and
urgent struggles, but what is the proactivity and rebellion typical of youth and
students put them in a favorable situation for a good outcome. ---- Despite the
increase in the cost of living since the beginning of the war in Europe, the
truth is that since 2020 a new phase has been experienced, with deprivation,
confinement, telework, telestudy, hypermediatization of suffering, precarious
work, the worsening of real estate speculation and the growing scrapping of
education along with the growth of its private sector. All of this affected and
affects all student and working youth, mainly because fewer and fewer
opportunities arise in Portuguese territory for those who are still establishing
themselves and are not heirs of capital.

In addition, there was a health crisis aggravated by the failure of health care
by the State, and a security crisis, with greater border control and
militarization of health with repercussions to this day, with the police and
military taking the lead. of the response to covid, again marginalizing in
particular black, migrant and precarious youth who found themselves employed
clandestinely during lockouts, threatened when leaving home for work, or having
more difficulty crossing borders to live and work. In addition, this situation
has made it more difficult for young people to leave their parents' home or
romantic relationships, leading to an increase in situations of abuse and
domestic violence in general and especially among lgbtqia+ and female youth.

As we were saying, the economic crisis of capitalism has now worsened with the
outbreak of the inter-imperialist war focused on Ukraine, and this is clear for
those who do not have the privilege of living a wealthy life, for which we will
spare no words - the totality of the people, those who do not live off
exploitation and speculation know what we are talking about. This war arises in
the context of a conflict of geopolitical interests, since the States, as centers
of power of the elites, tend to choose to dominate in order not to be dominated,
thus unmasking the nefarious interests that follow and the incapacity of the
capitalist market to supply for all the contradictions created by its political
and economic elites.

The threat of the spread of war, in addition to state terror in its physical
form, produces psychological effects across Europe that add to those of the
pandemic, and has introduced a new phase to the refugee crisis, in which
international youth are once again the most punished. . On the one hand, there is
a concrete need to organize support for refugees from this conflict, many young
people who flee compulsory military service in both countries, but we still find
the justification that allows some to cross borders and others, usually from the
countries of the South, to be hypocritical. Globally, migrants or young people
and students of color see their passports refused in Europe, as happened to black
Portuguese students in Ukraine.

On the other hand, there are several scenarios of global conflict that are
overshadowed and removed from the official media where young people are
protagonists of resistance to the established powers: as in Kurdistan, where the
Kurdish people are organized in federations such as the Kurdish Youth, the
Kurdish Student Movement, and the Youth Communes, where they organize themselves
to have their voice recognized and participate in the self-government of
communities; or among the Guaraní-Kaiowá people in Brazil, where young indigenous
people have their own self-organizing structure, the Aty Retomada Jovem. It is
certain that their realities, challenges and struggles are related to those of
young people around the world, even though they constitute an advanced front of
the global conflict and crisis.

In addition, we once again saw in our territory the effects of the climate
crisis, caused by capitalist speculation and resulting in the increase of extreme
phenomena such as large fires, droughts and floods, which, along with the
mismanagement of urban space, forestry and mining in the name of profit, become
destructive and fatal. We also saw the repression of high school and university
students from the "Fim ao Fóssil! Ocupa" movement who fight for the environmental
cause by occupying schools, and their willingness to confront the State and
private interests, which convinces us of their active role and conviction in
their greater interest in having a future and not a hecatomb instead of a planet,
despite the contradictions between the radical and institutional sectors in these
struggles.

This being the set of conditions in which we live, it is urgent that young people
organize themselves with demands, that they participate in collectives, social
movements, class associations, unions, without a deep political definition but
that seek to unite various people of a great social force, such as the Mutual
Support Network, which initially stood up to employers demanding more respect for
workers, which denounced various irregularities practiced by entrepreneurs:
fictitious contracts, 12-hour workdays, shift work, no night pay, just one day
off (when possible), shared schedules and no negotiation rights. And still others
from the student environment who seek to provide an answer to their problems,
namely economic, psychological, among others addressed. And it is necessary that
young people try to unite these groups in the direction of creating a common
independent front and a federation that increases its strength.

To do this, they have to be initiators, realizing that if they don't start from
them, it will be difficult to start from another sector of society, as they have
more energy and are more open to new things, they haven't experienced all the
benefits of a stable, well-paid job and they don't have the illusion of buy a
house in a big city and live a comfortable life with this economy. Many do not
know what they will have to do to survive in a short time or today. So let them
come together first to discuss their problems with whoever wants to join us, and
second to fight in solidarity for rights and freedom for all youth and the
working class.

On the other hand, their political and cultural organization is so relevant now,
because once educated about the origin of their evils, in the institutions of
political, economic power and other harmful structures that they extend to
society, such as racism and patriarchy, then it remains your critical ability to
plan beyond tomorrow and across a range of issues. Social movements such as class
associations bring together people with beliefs that are not so similar to each
other, many of whom are not young or on the social margins, and although they are
excellent spaces for action and for the debate and discussion of ideas, they are
not as good for the commitment, discipline and unity needed to develop a sector
that seeks to radically change its future in all aspects of life. Especially
because when this distinct task is mixed up and one tries to ensure that a social
movement has perfect discipline and commitment or adheres to an ideology or
ideological field, alien to the contradictions that exist within the people, we
almost always end up with a very enlightened small group that little
effectiveness it will have in the real struggle and emancipation. In addition,
many class movements despite having the potential to gather more social strength
than, for example, a collective of friendships or affinities, or restricted to
only women or trans students, class movements hardly focus on talking about more
specific topics that are also problems of working and student youth.

For the latter case, it is urgent to create in each claiming body, union,
association, as soon as they have a considerable number, subgroups of young
people, women, racialities and lgbtqia to address their particular problems, and
that these groups tend to federate with other groups of the same theme spread
across the territory and other movements, culminating in a front of struggles
that organizes us both around socio-economic and socio-cultural issues, youth
being one of these particular issues.

For the first case, that of political organization, we must build radical
tendencies in movements, and a specific revolutionary political organization that
develops political theory. In practice, that is, to unite the revolutionary and
autonomous sectors of the class, regardless of their ideological affiliation, in
an informal way, through dialogue, or formally, in trend organizations, such as
the Student Resistance (RELL), which brings together students who work in various
student movements. And on the other hand, building the political organization
that is the revolutionary party, which we identify with anarchism, which, unlike
the set of electoral, reformist parties that want to maintain the government of
elites through the State, has the most advanced program for total emancipation
and end of domination among mankind, and which will be able to develop the
necessary theory for the application of that program which the youth must
energetically adhere to as its great beneficiary.

Therefore, we call on anyone who is interested in seeking to learn more about
collectivist anarchism, and anyone who wants to get involved directly or
indirectly in the work of our organization and emancipatory political struggle in
Portugal to join or create local nuclei of the movements and collectives that we
support as the already mentioned, the Committee for Solidarity Among the Peoples,
Vozes de Dentro, among others that you consider valid and after that contact us.

"You rose again, then, you could not bury yourselves. That destructive spirit of
the State that animates you is therefore not the ephemeral product of a youthful
exaltation, but the expression of a vital need and of a true passion." - Mikhail
Bakunin, A few words to the young brothers in Russia

- COPOAP (Collective Pro-Anarchist Organization in Portugal)

https://embate-copoap.weebly.com/blog/carta-a-juventude-e-estudantes
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca