WORLD WORLDWIDE EUROPE CZECH News Journal Update - (en) Czech, AFED: A3: Authoritarianism on the way (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 The old "good Europe" is definitely not a paradise, quite the opposite

for the underprivileged. Download, print and distribute the July issue
of the A3 wall newspaper! ---- The specter of authoritarianism has hit
Europe from the East - Putin's special form of z-fascism was imported on
Russian tanks under the pretext of alleged demilitarization and
denazification. This manifests itself on Ukrainian soil by razing cities
and villages to the ground, rocket attacks on hospitals, schools,
museums, historical monuments and residential buildings, mass looting,
rape and torture. On Russian soil, z-fascism manifests itself in media
brainwashing, compulsory patriotism, liquidation of the opposition,
heavy punishments for anti-war positions, persecution of LGBT+
activists, torture (detained anarchists can tell many stories). This
barbarism is, on the one hand, the consistent promotion of conservative
values and the preservation of social inequalities, and on the other, a
necessary consequence of the imperial appetites of modern-day Tsar
Putin, who is backed by the equally conservative and inhuman Orthodox
Church, led by Patriarch Kirill, who blesses - according to Christian
tradition - lethal weapons.

The Western media paint a picture of a black and white world, where on
the one hand an evil empire advances from the East, against which stands
a united bulwark of the old "good Europe" defending democratic
principles. But the world is far from black and white, and the
characters on the imaginary battlefield of values are far from
clear-cut. It is enough to look around and we will see that
authoritarianism is spreading successfully even in that "good Europe".

Looking around, conservative forces in conjunction with Catholic
obscurants in Poland have ensured an absolute ban on abortion, killing
women who could normally go on living; the state television has become
an extended arm of the ruling party, which also appoints its incompetent
but loyal members, supporters and relatives to all possible positions.
In Hungary, it is forbidden to teach gender studies, the borders of the
state are marked by razor wire, and the ruling party usurps all power.
If we move to the south, we see how a fascist party has taken over the
government in Italy and is beginning to cut down various rights of
minorities with its own taste. Greece's conservative government, on the
other hand, is trying to liquidate self-governing centers that have been
built for years, and its border guards (along with the heartless rest of
Europe) cynically watch hundreds of needy refugees drown in the sea
without batting an eyelid. What is the difference between this meeting
and the Russian bombing of Ukrainian cities? All European NATO members
then bury their heads in the sand or go straight to the hands of
Turkey's authoritarian ruler Erdogan, who is no different from Putin -
he suppresses internal opposition and tries to eliminate one huge nation
and its culture.

We could go around Europe for a while longer and find evidence that
individual governments are not rushing to be defenders of democracy (in
the sense of expanding power into the hands of the people) and expanding
freedoms for all regardless of their place of origin or the color of
their skin. For everyone, let's cite the example of France, which
outwardly looks like an exemplary bearer of the values of freedom,
equality and fraternity.

It is not for nothing that French President Emmanuel Macron is nicknamed
"the president for the top ten thousand". If they defend anyone's
interests in France, it is primarily the interests of big capital. It
must be added that the majority of people who voted for him in the
elections did not vote for him so much as against the other candidate,
the head of the fascist National Association, Marin Le Pen.

Macron proved that he doesn't have that nickname for nothing. In the
interests of capital, he "pushed through" pension reform, which clearly
states that ordinary people will work longer for a lower pension. Thanks
to the fact that the approval of the reform came through a government
decree instead of approval in the lower house of parliament, France
resembles a monarchy rather than a republic. The proposal for a
referendum on reform was thrown off the table by Macron and the protests
were dispersed in the streets by thousands of policemen (the only ones,
along with the soldiers, were left with pension benefits, as is the
custom in authoritarian regimes).

France, like Russia, produces and punishes alleged terrorists from among
the anarchist movement. Prefectures loyal to Macron are liquidating the
state's anti-racist opposition - while fascists run rampant with
impunity, anti-fascists are prosecuted, as we witnessed in Lyon, for
example. Macron's police are ready to kill. As evidence, for example,
the brutal crackdown on the protest against the privatization of water
resources and the excavation of the largest industrial "megabasins" in
Sainte-Soline - several hundred people were seriously injured, including
dozens of crippled and two in a coma. Anti-environmental policy in the
interests of corporations is manifested by the banning of conservation
organizations such as Earth Rising. The heroes of the state are the
leading architects of the climate disaster - this month the CEO of Total
was awarded the Legion of Honor by the government. Police and state
racism and violence have also recently been manifested in the
extrajudicial execution of a 17-year-old boy and the brutal suppression,
arrest and conviction of people in connection with protests against this
police killing, regardless of whether they participated in them.
Meanwhile, the government bans memorial events for other victims of
police killings and arrests survivors. And the list could go on...

There is no such thing as a "good Europe". And it will not exist as long
as it is ruled by a capitalist regime based on social inequality,
exploitation, police violence, racism and other forms of oppression and
discrimination.

A3 (July 2023) can be downloaded HERE.

Download, print, share!

The A3 wall newspaper is published by the Anarchist Federation every
month. They are mainly intended for dissemination through plastering in
the streets or posting in workplaces and schools.

https://www.afed.cz/text/7983/a3-autoritarstvi-na-postupu
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