WORLD WORLDWIDE FRANCE ZWITSERLAND News Journal Update - (en) France, France, OCL CA: OCL press release - Solidarity with the FA - Censorship is freedom - About the RIA of 2023, but not only...(ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 During the anti-authoritarian meetings held in Saint-Imier from July 19

to 23, the stand and the militants of the Anarchist Federation were
physically attacked by people arrogating to themselves the right to
decide which writings had their place in a anarchist book fair and which
were to undergo a burning. ---- The Anarchist Federation issued the
following statement: ---- WILL THE CRADLE OF ANARCHISM BECOME ITS TOMB?
---- The press table held by the activists of the Francophone Anarchist
Federation in the Book Fair of the International Anti-Authoritarian
Meetings of Saint-Imier 2023 suffered several attacks (books stolen,
torn, soiled, burned, intimidation, physical attack, etc.).

These acts are contradictory with the fundamental principles of anarchism:
⁃ Freedom of expression;
⁃ The fight against religion, all religions, and theocratic powers;
⁃ Solidarity.

They are dangerous because they establish a thought police echoing the
worst regimes we are fighting.

Against obscurantism and intolerance, let us mobilize libertarian forces!

The Libertarian Communist Organization once again condemns these actions
and affirms its full solidarity with the comrades of the FA.

This new attack is only the continuation of a long series.

Some examples :

Already in 2012 in Saint-Imier, vegans attacked very "virilely" a stand
that dared to offer sausages. Others intended to impose on everyone the
clothes in which it was correct to wear.
In 2014 a publisher, invited to the libertarian book fair in Lyon, was
attacked with rage by people from the CGA for having published an author
who displeased them. A conference on the theme
“Resistance-Sexuality-Nationality in Ravensbrück” at the LGBT center in
Paris was canceled following threats linked to the speaker’s critical
positions vis-à-vis surrogacy.
In 2016 a debate based on the text "So far everything is fine" as part
of an evening entitled "  Opposing to racialism: discussion  " in
Marseille at the local Mille bâbords was interrupted by a group of
people violently bursting into room in order to prevent the debate,
notably by shouting "The discussion will not take place". Results:
trampled books and magazines, torn posters, overturned tables, blows and
threats, use of gas, broken window...
In 2019, in an activist local in Poitiers, individuals removed and
burned brochures deemed transphobic, then tagged the home of a feminist
activist who came to present her book criticizing postmodernism.
Last July 15, the CNT of Barcelona which invited the association
“Feminists of Catalonia” for a debate whose title was “Why so many girls
do not want to become women? , saw his local tagged the night before
with a message that read “transphobia is fascism” .
At the Salon du livre anarchiste des Balkans , from July 6 to 9 in
Ljubljana, people tried to cancel a discussion around the latest social
movements in France , moderated by members of the Parisian anarchist
library Les Fleurs Arctiques by covering them with insults, calling them
aggressors and intimidating anyone who persisted in wanting to attend
the debate.
Finally, representatives of the Italian Anarchist Federation report that
in Saint-Imier again, in 2023, during a workshop entitled "Anarchists at
war" , the voices expressing a different position from the organizers of
the workshop were censored, threatened , insulted.
Whether it is to ban Renaud Garcia, René Berthier, Alexis Escudero,
Marie Jo Bonnet, Hamid Zanaz or such and such a group, the method is
always the same: to adorn oneself with the title of libertarian to
better refuse it to others by dressing them of all kinds of "phobes   "
and "fascists". Which is reminiscent of the finest hours of the French
Stalinists who molested, threatened, forbade expression, and discredited
all those who bothered them. We remind you that proposing a book is not
an allegiance to its content but an incitement to debate. These
“post-anarchist neo-radicals” do not want any debate who consider that
the potential reader is in their image, incapable of thinking for
themselves.

In 2014 following the aforementioned attack in Lyon, the text Against
censorship and intimidation in spaces of libertarian expression was
signed by dozens of publishers and authors. This passage strikes us as
particularly topical.“We affirm our desire to no longer tolerate, on the
pretext that they emanate from people from “our environment”,
authoritarian behavior borrowed from the worst Stalinist tradition.
Anyone who uses verbal and a fortiori physical violence in these
circumstances cannot expect to be treated as a comrade and must be
expelled unceremoniously from the spaces for discussion and exchange. We
call on the organizers of libertarian fairs and meetings to take a clear
position on this point so that these places once again become real
spaces for meetings and debates. So that our participation no longer
appears as a guarantee given to the muscular intrusions of the
auxiliaries of the thought police. »

Libertarian Communist Organization
August 2023

Against censorship and intimidation in spaces of libertarian expression
(December 2014)

Preventing debates from taking place in "libertarian" spaces by upstream
threats or by untimely interruptions (screams, blows and death threats),
spreading false accusations, practicing amalgamation and anathema,
flooding with abusive comments "libertarian" sites that dare to give a
voice to blacklisted authors, such are the behaviors that we are
witnessing more and more frequently on the part of new censors awarding
themselves the libertarian label that they refuse to others.

Playing with remarkable efficiency on the feeling of guilt of
publishers, booksellers, site or magazine organizers and event
organizers who are more afraid than anything of being awarded "phobe"
qualifiers, these censors most often succeed in purposes. To preserve an
illusory unity of the environment, many of us prefer, in fact, to avoid
questions that annoy.

These authoritarian practices remind us of the actions of the French
Stalinists who molested, threatened, forbade expression, and discredited
all those who, speaking from a leftist point of view, dared to denounce
the dark side of the Soviet Union. Panaït Istrati, Victor Serge, and
many others have had bitter experience of this.

The violent destruction of a meat meal by certain fundamentalist
“vegans” during the libertarian days of Saint-Imier in August 2012 is a
symptom of this new state of mind. More recently, in November 2014,
Alexis Escudero author of The Artificial Reproduction of Humans and his
publishers (Le Monde à l'envers) invited to debate at the libertarian
book fair in Lyon were violently attacked, an event that echoes the
cancellation of a conference by Marie-Jo Bonnet on the theme
“Resistance-Sexuality-Nationality in Ravensbrück” scheduled for December
9, 2014 at the LGBT center in Paris due to threats related to her
positions against surrogacy.

Faced with these recent events, we feel we can no longer continue to
remain silent in the face of those who claim to dictate to us what we
should eat, drink, read or think. We affirm our desire to no longer
tolerate, on the pretext that they emanate from people from "our
environment", authoritarian behavior borrowed from the worst Stalinist
tradition. Anyone who uses verbal and a fortiori physical violence in
these circumstances cannot expect to be treated as a comrade and must be
expelled unceremoniously from the spaces for discussion and exchange. We
call on the organizers of libertarian fairs and meetings to take a clear
position on this point so that these places once again become real
spaces for meetings and debates.

http://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article3899
_________________________________________
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