The interested manipulation of history is the daily bread on the part of
some and others, since it is well known that in memory/history resides
an engine of momentum-or retreat, and consolidation of privileges for a
few-in the present. Hence the dispute over the speech. Of course, it is
not a phenomenon that can be reduced to the Spanish state but, as the
popular phrase says: the victors write history, or rather, the victors
discipline and indoctrinate since they are the ones who possess the
tools and means to create hegemony. Perhaps the particular case of the
Spanish Civil War is a good model to look at. An example: like a mantra,
it has come down to our days that in the conflict there were "two
sides", one fighting for the Republic, the other the rebellious side.
We, anarchists and/or anarcho-syndicalists, know well that this mantra
is de-complexifying and self-interested, that it erases from history,
and from the collective imaginations, the revolutionary process that was
launched in those years; which is a biased and well-known fiction, not
only for the victors but for a good part of the defeated who today nest
in the structures of the State.
This flattening of history-and therefore the construction of memory that
skewers us-produces phenomena of forgetting that end up making serious
errors when making genealogies. In some cases these errors are still the
product of a discourse repeated ad nauseum that we have ended up
believing at a structural level; In others, it is the product of a
tortuous historical revisionism that gives rise to the appropriation of
figures with a certain relevance and who are very useful in political
and/or cultural campaigns: political marketing in its purest form, a
"commercial" use of history that is far from It is about truth, justice
and reparation.
Like a mantra, it has come down to our days that in the conflict there
were "two sides", one fighting for the Republic, the other the
rebellious side. We, anarchists and/or anarcho-syndicalists, know well
that this mantra is decomplexifying and self-interested, that it erases
from history, and from the collective imagination, the revolutionary
process that was launched in those years.
With respect to the first case, we can talk about how sometimes blunders
are made when it comes to historical dissemination. For example, a few
years ago an illustration by the Jerez anarchist María Luisa Cobo was
published on a portal in which she appeared with the flag of the
Republic. She who fought in the CNT and Mujeres Libres from anarchist
convictions, and made harangues against the new republican government,
ends up being remembered with a flag that she never carried and against
which she also fought, since her militancy sought the achievement of the
libertarian communist . The case of Lucía Sánchez Saornil is quite
grotesque, since an image of Antonio Fontanillas-also of Simone Weil,
América Barroso and even Soledad Estorach-has ended up being used as if
it were Lucía's face, in this case the naive error is intertwined with
the politician, because although its non-face has ended up being
reproduced in a multitude of literary, libertarian and activist forums,
it has also been used in campaigns such as that of Feminismos Podemos
for the anniversary of the Second Republic.
Memory and political marketing.
Lucía's case helps us make the leap to that grotesque political
marketing that she talked about before. A poster in which you can read
Lucía Sánchez Saornil, with the face on the right side of Antonia
Fontanillas and with a small text that says: «Poet who came into contact
with anarcho-syndicalism working at Telefónica, where he understood that
the movement forgot women. She co-founded Mujeres Libres in 1936 to
fight capitalism and patriarchy. After the War she suffered a triple
exile: as a republican, as a woman and as a lesbian. Although the idea
of claiming the figure of an anarchist on Republic Day may at first seem
strange, I can accept that it is promoted to women who contributed at
that time to broaden the narrow limits of a conservative society. What
is unacceptable is that her militancy and her ideas are distorted to
generate confusion about her political commitment.
Another example takes us to last March 8, in which the Madrid PSOE
launched a campaign that publicized feminist women in the region. In one
of her posters you can see an old Federica Montseny under the labels of
"Madrid politician and trade unionist", with none of them did she define
herself during her life and none of them represented her militant work.
. It seems that that is the least of it, there is no interest in honest
recovery but rather a sum of amount, the amount at the cost of
disfiguring the fund, of disfiguring who those people were. All to
attract votes, the same ones that Federica despised in life, since she
believed in a radical transformation of society in which the State
structure would end, and therefore with political parties such as the
PSOE inserted in said structure. Anarchist, how it must sting to write
just the word.
For a memorable thought.
Of course, these are just some examples, furthermore this distortion is
not foreign to us in the anarchist and/or anarcho-syndicalist spectrum,
which is why I am very interested in memorial thinking as theorized by
Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui: "the game of memory as something active in the
present life. This makes me think that within our organization we also
have to reflect to what extent we integrate memory into our political
praxis, because despite having a lot against us, despite the media siege
and the instrumentalization and interested silencing of our ideas and
practices, there is also a responsibility on our part of this handling.
Without going any further, I was moved to hear in Congress my colleague
Luis Fuentes explain to the plenary session his concern about the role
we give to memory-more specifically to what is related to work in mass
graves-in CNT. I collect that reflection so that this small text can
also serve us, to (re)think to what extent we do memory thinking, to
what extent ethics, aesthetics and ambition go hand in hand to
disseminate our history, honor our dead and continue their fight from
the present-walk that Rivera Cusicanqui whispers to us, with a future on
our backs and a past before us.
https://www.cnt.es/noticias/manosear-la-memoria-tergiversacion-y-apropiacion-con-fines-partidistas/
_________________________________________
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
some and others, since it is well known that in memory/history resides
an engine of momentum-or retreat, and consolidation of privileges for a
few-in the present. Hence the dispute over the speech. Of course, it is
not a phenomenon that can be reduced to the Spanish state but, as the
popular phrase says: the victors write history, or rather, the victors
discipline and indoctrinate since they are the ones who possess the
tools and means to create hegemony. Perhaps the particular case of the
Spanish Civil War is a good model to look at. An example: like a mantra,
it has come down to our days that in the conflict there were "two
sides", one fighting for the Republic, the other the rebellious side.
We, anarchists and/or anarcho-syndicalists, know well that this mantra
is de-complexifying and self-interested, that it erases from history,
and from the collective imaginations, the revolutionary process that was
launched in those years; which is a biased and well-known fiction, not
only for the victors but for a good part of the defeated who today nest
in the structures of the State.
This flattening of history-and therefore the construction of memory that
skewers us-produces phenomena of forgetting that end up making serious
errors when making genealogies. In some cases these errors are still the
product of a discourse repeated ad nauseum that we have ended up
believing at a structural level; In others, it is the product of a
tortuous historical revisionism that gives rise to the appropriation of
figures with a certain relevance and who are very useful in political
and/or cultural campaigns: political marketing in its purest form, a
"commercial" use of history that is far from It is about truth, justice
and reparation.
Like a mantra, it has come down to our days that in the conflict there
were "two sides", one fighting for the Republic, the other the
rebellious side. We, anarchists and/or anarcho-syndicalists, know well
that this mantra is decomplexifying and self-interested, that it erases
from history, and from the collective imagination, the revolutionary
process that was launched in those years.
With respect to the first case, we can talk about how sometimes blunders
are made when it comes to historical dissemination. For example, a few
years ago an illustration by the Jerez anarchist María Luisa Cobo was
published on a portal in which she appeared with the flag of the
Republic. She who fought in the CNT and Mujeres Libres from anarchist
convictions, and made harangues against the new republican government,
ends up being remembered with a flag that she never carried and against
which she also fought, since her militancy sought the achievement of the
libertarian communist . The case of Lucía Sánchez Saornil is quite
grotesque, since an image of Antonio Fontanillas-also of Simone Weil,
América Barroso and even Soledad Estorach-has ended up being used as if
it were Lucía's face, in this case the naive error is intertwined with
the politician, because although its non-face has ended up being
reproduced in a multitude of literary, libertarian and activist forums,
it has also been used in campaigns such as that of Feminismos Podemos
for the anniversary of the Second Republic.
Memory and political marketing.
Lucía's case helps us make the leap to that grotesque political
marketing that she talked about before. A poster in which you can read
Lucía Sánchez Saornil, with the face on the right side of Antonia
Fontanillas and with a small text that says: «Poet who came into contact
with anarcho-syndicalism working at Telefónica, where he understood that
the movement forgot women. She co-founded Mujeres Libres in 1936 to
fight capitalism and patriarchy. After the War she suffered a triple
exile: as a republican, as a woman and as a lesbian. Although the idea
of claiming the figure of an anarchist on Republic Day may at first seem
strange, I can accept that it is promoted to women who contributed at
that time to broaden the narrow limits of a conservative society. What
is unacceptable is that her militancy and her ideas are distorted to
generate confusion about her political commitment.
Another example takes us to last March 8, in which the Madrid PSOE
launched a campaign that publicized feminist women in the region. In one
of her posters you can see an old Federica Montseny under the labels of
"Madrid politician and trade unionist", with none of them did she define
herself during her life and none of them represented her militant work.
. It seems that that is the least of it, there is no interest in honest
recovery but rather a sum of amount, the amount at the cost of
disfiguring the fund, of disfiguring who those people were. All to
attract votes, the same ones that Federica despised in life, since she
believed in a radical transformation of society in which the State
structure would end, and therefore with political parties such as the
PSOE inserted in said structure. Anarchist, how it must sting to write
just the word.
For a memorable thought.
Of course, these are just some examples, furthermore this distortion is
not foreign to us in the anarchist and/or anarcho-syndicalist spectrum,
which is why I am very interested in memorial thinking as theorized by
Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui: "the game of memory as something active in the
present life. This makes me think that within our organization we also
have to reflect to what extent we integrate memory into our political
praxis, because despite having a lot against us, despite the media siege
and the instrumentalization and interested silencing of our ideas and
practices, there is also a responsibility on our part of this handling.
Without going any further, I was moved to hear in Congress my colleague
Luis Fuentes explain to the plenary session his concern about the role
we give to memory-more specifically to what is related to work in mass
graves-in CNT. I collect that reflection so that this small text can
also serve us, to (re)think to what extent we do memory thinking, to
what extent ethics, aesthetics and ambition go hand in hand to
disseminate our history, honor our dead and continue their fight from
the present-walk that Rivera Cusicanqui whispers to us, with a future on
our backs and a past before us.
https://www.cnt.es/noticias/manosear-la-memoria-tergiversacion-y-apropiacion-con-fines-partidistas/
_________________________________________
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
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