Groups of children attacking people perceived as migrants in Great
Britain. Swastikas and "Foreigners out" chants in a primary school
day-care center in Pirna. Extreme right-wing youths who come together to
deliberately disrupt and attack Pride parades. There is great surprise
and outcry of horror in the media and society as a whole at these
incidents and riots, astonishment in the face of the high results of
extreme right-wing parties among the younger generation. How could it
have come to this?
Neither the shift to the right among young people nor the excesses of
violence in which it erupts are surprising or sudden. On the one hand,
they are part of a shift to the right in society as a whole, fueled by
the massive austerity measures in public social services in recent
years, and on the other hand, they are a symptom and direct consequence
of a bitter truth: this system does not care about a good life for young
people.
Ridiculed as the TikTok generation and trapped in a school system
characterized by social inequality, chronically overloaded and
underfunded, young people in Germany and everywhere are confronted with
one thing above all: a lack of prospects. More than one in five children
in Germany grows up in poverty, the mental health of children and young
people has reached a new low since Corona at the latest, and politicians
are only interested in the concerns of young people when the next
election is around the corner.
All of this is no coincidence, but an expression of the capitalist logic
of exploitation that runs through all areas of our society. Children and
young people do not generate added value (at least in large parts of the
global north); they are primarily relevant to the capitalist system in
their function as future workers, who must be trained as well as
possible for this purpose and aligned with this goal. However, this
"perspective" of profitable exploitation through qualified jobs is by no
means open to everyone: the particularly precarious part of the young
working class in particular can rarely hope for such "qualification"
and, in their particular lack of prospects and simultaneous need as
cheap labor and industrial reserve army, are perceived more as a
security problem, the "management" of which is also done with violence.
Beyond their future position in value creation, however, young people
remain largely ignored by society.
This was also shown not least by the school closures during the Corona
crisis, the consequences of which children and young people are still
feeling today. While the continuation of production could not be
endangered at any cost, school closures, curfews and social contact
restrictions were among the first reactions to the pandemic, contrary to
scientific findings. The negative consequences of these measures for
young people were often instrumentalized by right-wing and
conspiracy-ideological groups to trivialize and deny the pandemic, but
were hardly noticed beyond that.
Children are also among the main victims of current wars and are one of
the largest groups of victims. Whether they are consciously accepted as
"collateral damage", ignored as the surviving relatives of parents
killed in war, or deliberately used as pawns in "modern warfare",
children and young people all over the world suffer and die for the
profit and power interests of the ruling class.
The lack of prospects for young people and active politics against their
interests are the breeding ground for racist resentment and inhumane
enemy constructions - and not, as is often claimed, the "stupidity" and
gullible susceptibility of young people to populist propaganda videos.
The right-wing violence that is erupting on the streets in many places
is directed against people affected by racism, queer people, or those
who are labelled as "different" or "threatening" for other reasons in
the extreme right-wing worldview, but it is also an expression of
frustration, anger and powerlessness in the face of this lack of prospects.
It is therefore up to us as revolutionaries to make the perspective of a
better and self-determined society tangible and to build up the forces
of revolution. A central component of this struggle is the youth - not
as a homogeneous, either patronized or romanticized mass, but as victims
of the capitalist system, an important part of the working class and a
force for change that should not be underestimated.
It is important to decisively oppose the right and its narratives in
schools, universities, training centers, neighborhoods and companies, to
promote organization for a better world and thus build counter-power
from below. We see promising developments in the establishment of
syndicalist youth organizations such as the Autonomous Student
Syndicates or the Free Workers Youth Switzerland, as well as in the
emergence of neighborhood unions and other structures of
solidarity-based self-organization and mutual aid.
For a fighting and organized youth! For the social revolution
https://www.dieplattform.org/2024/08/26/jugend-ohne-perspektive-jugend-fuer-die-revolution/#more-3322
_________________________________________
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
Britain. Swastikas and "Foreigners out" chants in a primary school
day-care center in Pirna. Extreme right-wing youths who come together to
deliberately disrupt and attack Pride parades. There is great surprise
and outcry of horror in the media and society as a whole at these
incidents and riots, astonishment in the face of the high results of
extreme right-wing parties among the younger generation. How could it
have come to this?
Neither the shift to the right among young people nor the excesses of
violence in which it erupts are surprising or sudden. On the one hand,
they are part of a shift to the right in society as a whole, fueled by
the massive austerity measures in public social services in recent
years, and on the other hand, they are a symptom and direct consequence
of a bitter truth: this system does not care about a good life for young
people.
Ridiculed as the TikTok generation and trapped in a school system
characterized by social inequality, chronically overloaded and
underfunded, young people in Germany and everywhere are confronted with
one thing above all: a lack of prospects. More than one in five children
in Germany grows up in poverty, the mental health of children and young
people has reached a new low since Corona at the latest, and politicians
are only interested in the concerns of young people when the next
election is around the corner.
All of this is no coincidence, but an expression of the capitalist logic
of exploitation that runs through all areas of our society. Children and
young people do not generate added value (at least in large parts of the
global north); they are primarily relevant to the capitalist system in
their function as future workers, who must be trained as well as
possible for this purpose and aligned with this goal. However, this
"perspective" of profitable exploitation through qualified jobs is by no
means open to everyone: the particularly precarious part of the young
working class in particular can rarely hope for such "qualification"
and, in their particular lack of prospects and simultaneous need as
cheap labor and industrial reserve army, are perceived more as a
security problem, the "management" of which is also done with violence.
Beyond their future position in value creation, however, young people
remain largely ignored by society.
This was also shown not least by the school closures during the Corona
crisis, the consequences of which children and young people are still
feeling today. While the continuation of production could not be
endangered at any cost, school closures, curfews and social contact
restrictions were among the first reactions to the pandemic, contrary to
scientific findings. The negative consequences of these measures for
young people were often instrumentalized by right-wing and
conspiracy-ideological groups to trivialize and deny the pandemic, but
were hardly noticed beyond that.
Children are also among the main victims of current wars and are one of
the largest groups of victims. Whether they are consciously accepted as
"collateral damage", ignored as the surviving relatives of parents
killed in war, or deliberately used as pawns in "modern warfare",
children and young people all over the world suffer and die for the
profit and power interests of the ruling class.
The lack of prospects for young people and active politics against their
interests are the breeding ground for racist resentment and inhumane
enemy constructions - and not, as is often claimed, the "stupidity" and
gullible susceptibility of young people to populist propaganda videos.
The right-wing violence that is erupting on the streets in many places
is directed against people affected by racism, queer people, or those
who are labelled as "different" or "threatening" for other reasons in
the extreme right-wing worldview, but it is also an expression of
frustration, anger and powerlessness in the face of this lack of prospects.
It is therefore up to us as revolutionaries to make the perspective of a
better and self-determined society tangible and to build up the forces
of revolution. A central component of this struggle is the youth - not
as a homogeneous, either patronized or romanticized mass, but as victims
of the capitalist system, an important part of the working class and a
force for change that should not be underestimated.
It is important to decisively oppose the right and its narratives in
schools, universities, training centers, neighborhoods and companies, to
promote organization for a better world and thus build counter-power
from below. We see promising developments in the establishment of
syndicalist youth organizations such as the Autonomous Student
Syndicates or the Free Workers Youth Switzerland, as well as in the
emergence of neighborhood unions and other structures of
solidarity-based self-organization and mutual aid.
For a fighting and organized youth! For the social revolution
https://www.dieplattform.org/2024/08/26/jugend-ohne-perspektive-jugend-fuer-die-revolution/#more-3322
_________________________________________
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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