Fascism on fascism, and drives fascism: students against Ilyin and Dugin
---- Interesting things began in April at the Moscow University of the
Russian State University for the Humanities (Russian State University
for the Humanities). Students there are protesting against the creation
of an educational and research center named after Ivan Ilyin within the
walls of the university. Ilyin, as you know, is an openly ultra-right
philosopher of the late 19th - mid-20th centuries. So that no one has
any doubts at all, this center will be headed by the odious modern
far-right philosopher-propagandist Alexander Dugin (Google him yourself,
we won't give links). Students created a petition against the center and
also maintain a Telegram channel about the situation. There, for
example, you can watch a video by historian Alexander Shubin, who wrote
many works on anarchism and spoke at the Avtonom lecture.
It is great that students are in favor of collective decision-making:
they are demanding a universal vote on the name of the new center. So we
support this petition. The subtlety is that in Russia in 2024, even when
you write a petition against fascist philosophers, you are forced to use
propaganda clichés like "Russia is the victorious country of fascism."
Because of this, the petition sometimes reads a little creepily, but
this is apparently a sign of the times. Let us recall that the president
of this very "victor of fascism", Vladimir Putin, is a well-known
admirer of this very Ivan Ilyin. So, it's scary to say that students are
raising their voices against Putin. Which we are, of course, very happy
about, and we hope that RSUH students will not stop at petitions. After
all, as we all know well, anti-fascist action is not just words.
Power signals: how Apple caved in to China
This week, interesting news came from China... or not quite from China.
In general, the point is that the Chinese government approached Apple
and demanded that certain applications be removed from the AppStore in
China. And the huge multinational corporation Apple complied.
China's demand primarily concerned messengers: Apple removed Whatsapp,
Telegram and Signal.
It is quite understandable why Chinese comrades in uniform are afraid of
instant messengers: this is communication between people beyond their
control. Whatsapp and Signal use strong end-to-end encryption, Telegram
has weaker encryption, but still, this messenger also apparently does
not easily follow China's lead.
What's more interesting is why Apple caved in and removed applications
that are used by tens of millions of Chinese. The company itself
commented on this decision simply: "We comply with the laws of the
countries where we operate, even if we don't like them." Well, I doubt
that Apple would have caved in the same way to the demands of some small
African country, for example. No, here we are witnessing the real-life
setting of priorities by big business. Apple sees China as a huge
potential market and a source of huge profits. For this reason, you can
resort to unpopular censorship - especially since the applications that
are removed are not from Apple itself, but from other companies,
actually Apple's competitors. More precisely, Signal is managed by a
non-profit foundation and formally is not a competitor and is not
involved in business at all, but Whatsapp and Telegram are absolutely
commercial products, they are owned by companies that aim to make a profit.
Let's think about what will happen if Russia also demands that Apple
remove Signal from the Russian AppStore? Or should Google remove it from
GooglePlay? Of course, there is hope that Russia is now so toxic that
they will still refuse it. But in general, we see that global high-tech
corporations are easily willing to sacrifice freedom in the name of profits.
By the way, this is one of the reasons why, of all the messengers listed
above, we recommend Signal. Quoting the website of this messenger
itself, "Signal is an independent non-profit project. We are not
affiliated with any major tech companies. None of them will ever buy us.
The project exists on grants and donations from people like you."
In 2023, the UK passed the Online Safety Bill. At least in theory, it
gives the government the right to require encrypted messengers to censor
the content of messages - that is, in fact, to break this very
encryption. So far, in reality, these demands have not been put forward
to anyone, but legally there is such a possibility. So, Signal
representatives immediately stated that if such demands were made, they
would simply formally leave the British market, but would never weaken
the encryption. Compare with Apple. "Leave the market" in this case, of
course, is just a figure of speech, because Signal does not trade
anything on any market.
Signal does not and never will have advertising, which is becoming more
and more common on Telegram. And of course, Signal is open source
software, so anyone can follow or participate in the development
process. By the way, you can also write to Autonomous Action in Signal,
look for details on our contact page.
Kyrgyzstan is unsafe again
We have already written that Kyrgyzstan is unsafe for political
emigrants from Russia. For example, earlier the FSB easily kidnapped
anarchists Alexei Rozhkov and Lev Skoryakin there. They were wanted, so
to speak, "for politics": Alexey for setting fire to the military
registration and enlistment office, and Lev for an action outside the
walls of the Moscow FSB.
But this week the news came that Kyrgyz cops handed over Vladimir
Golovchenko to their Russian colleagues. He seems to be suspected of
being the one who organized the bombing of Vasily Prozorov's car in
Moscow in early April. Prozorov is a former SBU officer from Ukraine who
defected to Russia even before the start of a full-scale war. And so,
apparently, the Ukrainian special services reached out to him with the
hands of this same Vladimir Golovchenko, who then evacuated to
Kyrgyzstan. It's interesting that Golovchenko doesn't even seem to be a
citizen of Russia - he has citizenship of Kyrgyzstan and a residence
permit in Ukraine. But even this did not help: apparently, the influence
of the FSB on the Kyrgyz security forces is too strong.
In general, we remind you once again that if you want to hide from the
clutches of the Kremlin state machine, then Kyrgyzstan is a bad option.
Yes, you don't need a visa, but the danger is too great. Better choose
Armenia or Georgia. The situation with Uzbekistan is not very clear yet,
if you have information, write in the comments.
Million rubles for the war
People on both sides continue to die in the Ukrainian war. To make up
for losses, both Ukraine and Russia are using all possible methods of
replenishing their armies. Russia, of course, is taking advantage of its
much more advantageous financial position - and it has already been
announced that in Nizhny Novgorod the so-called "volunteers" will
immediately receive as much as a million rubles. Apparently, the Kremlin
is acting rather cleverly: it puts regional heads in a situation of
competition "who can supply the most contract soldiers to the war." And
then the governors are already spinning around as best they can - and,
of course, the most obvious way is to find money and wave it in front of
low-income citizens.
At the same time, in Ukraine there is much less money, and instead of
financial enticements, strict "anti-deviation" laws are adopted there
and virtually violent mobilization continues.
All this, of course, is very sad.
Ukrainians are heroically fighting against Kremlin aggression, but we
certainly don't have to always approve of what the Ukrainian government
decides. For example, it is really difficult for an anarchist to support
forced conscription and the closure of leaving the country for men. It
is clear why these measures were introduced, but still it is impossible
to send people to the front against their will, this is, well, some kind
of base or something. Anarchists advocate a voluntary army, or at least
a movement in this direction. Moreover, an army that is forcibly
mobilized is unlikely to turn out to be very effective, no matter how
many Haymars you give them.
It's sad about Russia, because a lot of Russians seem quite ready to go
kill people in a neighboring country for a million rubles. It is clear
that there are also economic reasons for this: there are not very many
socio-economic elevators, especially in non-central regions, and many
simply do not see other ways to change their lives. But, on the other
hand, even the difficult economic situation still does not justify
voluntarily joining the army of the aggressor.
The Brothers Grimm have a fairy tale about a girl, Rapunzel, who was
locked in a tower without doors by her evil witch stepmother and would
not let go. Well, like a repressive family convinced the child that the
world around him is very dangerous, and this very world should be looked
at only from the point of view of an authoritarian parent. Rapunzel sat
in the tower, slept most of the time and grew her hair, along which the
sorceress then climbed into her tower.
So, there is a feeling that these Russian "volunteers" are living in
some kind of dream, like Rapunzel. This dream isolates them from a
holistic perception of the world around them, deprives them of empathy
and the ability to distinguish between good and evil. It's like children
who have not yet matured enough to take responsibility for their lives
and actions. In a sense, it is precisely this passive infantilism that
is the main enemy of anarchists: we need a society where everyone takes
responsibility for everyone, and everyone is responsible for each other.
A society of active and enterprising people.
Well, in the fairy tale of the Brothers Grimm, using the same hair that
the evil witch climbed into the tower, the good prince eventually
climbed there, with whom Rapunzel eventually escaped. Authoritarian
regimes always dig their own graves with their own practices: either
they name a research center at a university after an odious fascist, or
they start a war with a neighboring country. Through all this concrete
and barbed wire, paradoxically, rejection of the regime and the desire
for freedom grow. This is the kind prince who can wake up in everyone's
head. This is what we all wish for, as in the Straw Raccoons song called
"Song Against Sleep."
Well that's all for today! We remind you that in Trends in Order and
Chaos, members of Autonomous Action and other authors give anarchist
assessments of current events. Listen to us on YouTube, SoundCloud and
other platforms, visit our website avtonom.org, subscribe to our social
networks and e-mail newsletter.
Issue prepared by Mani
https://avtonom.org/news/rapuncel-prosnis-trendy-poryadka-i-haosa-epizod-154
_________________________________________
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
---- Interesting things began in April at the Moscow University of the
Russian State University for the Humanities (Russian State University
for the Humanities). Students there are protesting against the creation
of an educational and research center named after Ivan Ilyin within the
walls of the university. Ilyin, as you know, is an openly ultra-right
philosopher of the late 19th - mid-20th centuries. So that no one has
any doubts at all, this center will be headed by the odious modern
far-right philosopher-propagandist Alexander Dugin (Google him yourself,
we won't give links). Students created a petition against the center and
also maintain a Telegram channel about the situation. There, for
example, you can watch a video by historian Alexander Shubin, who wrote
many works on anarchism and spoke at the Avtonom lecture.
It is great that students are in favor of collective decision-making:
they are demanding a universal vote on the name of the new center. So we
support this petition. The subtlety is that in Russia in 2024, even when
you write a petition against fascist philosophers, you are forced to use
propaganda clichés like "Russia is the victorious country of fascism."
Because of this, the petition sometimes reads a little creepily, but
this is apparently a sign of the times. Let us recall that the president
of this very "victor of fascism", Vladimir Putin, is a well-known
admirer of this very Ivan Ilyin. So, it's scary to say that students are
raising their voices against Putin. Which we are, of course, very happy
about, and we hope that RSUH students will not stop at petitions. After
all, as we all know well, anti-fascist action is not just words.
Power signals: how Apple caved in to China
This week, interesting news came from China... or not quite from China.
In general, the point is that the Chinese government approached Apple
and demanded that certain applications be removed from the AppStore in
China. And the huge multinational corporation Apple complied.
China's demand primarily concerned messengers: Apple removed Whatsapp,
Telegram and Signal.
It is quite understandable why Chinese comrades in uniform are afraid of
instant messengers: this is communication between people beyond their
control. Whatsapp and Signal use strong end-to-end encryption, Telegram
has weaker encryption, but still, this messenger also apparently does
not easily follow China's lead.
What's more interesting is why Apple caved in and removed applications
that are used by tens of millions of Chinese. The company itself
commented on this decision simply: "We comply with the laws of the
countries where we operate, even if we don't like them." Well, I doubt
that Apple would have caved in the same way to the demands of some small
African country, for example. No, here we are witnessing the real-life
setting of priorities by big business. Apple sees China as a huge
potential market and a source of huge profits. For this reason, you can
resort to unpopular censorship - especially since the applications that
are removed are not from Apple itself, but from other companies,
actually Apple's competitors. More precisely, Signal is managed by a
non-profit foundation and formally is not a competitor and is not
involved in business at all, but Whatsapp and Telegram are absolutely
commercial products, they are owned by companies that aim to make a profit.
Let's think about what will happen if Russia also demands that Apple
remove Signal from the Russian AppStore? Or should Google remove it from
GooglePlay? Of course, there is hope that Russia is now so toxic that
they will still refuse it. But in general, we see that global high-tech
corporations are easily willing to sacrifice freedom in the name of profits.
By the way, this is one of the reasons why, of all the messengers listed
above, we recommend Signal. Quoting the website of this messenger
itself, "Signal is an independent non-profit project. We are not
affiliated with any major tech companies. None of them will ever buy us.
The project exists on grants and donations from people like you."
In 2023, the UK passed the Online Safety Bill. At least in theory, it
gives the government the right to require encrypted messengers to censor
the content of messages - that is, in fact, to break this very
encryption. So far, in reality, these demands have not been put forward
to anyone, but legally there is such a possibility. So, Signal
representatives immediately stated that if such demands were made, they
would simply formally leave the British market, but would never weaken
the encryption. Compare with Apple. "Leave the market" in this case, of
course, is just a figure of speech, because Signal does not trade
anything on any market.
Signal does not and never will have advertising, which is becoming more
and more common on Telegram. And of course, Signal is open source
software, so anyone can follow or participate in the development
process. By the way, you can also write to Autonomous Action in Signal,
look for details on our contact page.
Kyrgyzstan is unsafe again
We have already written that Kyrgyzstan is unsafe for political
emigrants from Russia. For example, earlier the FSB easily kidnapped
anarchists Alexei Rozhkov and Lev Skoryakin there. They were wanted, so
to speak, "for politics": Alexey for setting fire to the military
registration and enlistment office, and Lev for an action outside the
walls of the Moscow FSB.
But this week the news came that Kyrgyz cops handed over Vladimir
Golovchenko to their Russian colleagues. He seems to be suspected of
being the one who organized the bombing of Vasily Prozorov's car in
Moscow in early April. Prozorov is a former SBU officer from Ukraine who
defected to Russia even before the start of a full-scale war. And so,
apparently, the Ukrainian special services reached out to him with the
hands of this same Vladimir Golovchenko, who then evacuated to
Kyrgyzstan. It's interesting that Golovchenko doesn't even seem to be a
citizen of Russia - he has citizenship of Kyrgyzstan and a residence
permit in Ukraine. But even this did not help: apparently, the influence
of the FSB on the Kyrgyz security forces is too strong.
In general, we remind you once again that if you want to hide from the
clutches of the Kremlin state machine, then Kyrgyzstan is a bad option.
Yes, you don't need a visa, but the danger is too great. Better choose
Armenia or Georgia. The situation with Uzbekistan is not very clear yet,
if you have information, write in the comments.
Million rubles for the war
People on both sides continue to die in the Ukrainian war. To make up
for losses, both Ukraine and Russia are using all possible methods of
replenishing their armies. Russia, of course, is taking advantage of its
much more advantageous financial position - and it has already been
announced that in Nizhny Novgorod the so-called "volunteers" will
immediately receive as much as a million rubles. Apparently, the Kremlin
is acting rather cleverly: it puts regional heads in a situation of
competition "who can supply the most contract soldiers to the war." And
then the governors are already spinning around as best they can - and,
of course, the most obvious way is to find money and wave it in front of
low-income citizens.
At the same time, in Ukraine there is much less money, and instead of
financial enticements, strict "anti-deviation" laws are adopted there
and virtually violent mobilization continues.
All this, of course, is very sad.
Ukrainians are heroically fighting against Kremlin aggression, but we
certainly don't have to always approve of what the Ukrainian government
decides. For example, it is really difficult for an anarchist to support
forced conscription and the closure of leaving the country for men. It
is clear why these measures were introduced, but still it is impossible
to send people to the front against their will, this is, well, some kind
of base or something. Anarchists advocate a voluntary army, or at least
a movement in this direction. Moreover, an army that is forcibly
mobilized is unlikely to turn out to be very effective, no matter how
many Haymars you give them.
It's sad about Russia, because a lot of Russians seem quite ready to go
kill people in a neighboring country for a million rubles. It is clear
that there are also economic reasons for this: there are not very many
socio-economic elevators, especially in non-central regions, and many
simply do not see other ways to change their lives. But, on the other
hand, even the difficult economic situation still does not justify
voluntarily joining the army of the aggressor.
The Brothers Grimm have a fairy tale about a girl, Rapunzel, who was
locked in a tower without doors by her evil witch stepmother and would
not let go. Well, like a repressive family convinced the child that the
world around him is very dangerous, and this very world should be looked
at only from the point of view of an authoritarian parent. Rapunzel sat
in the tower, slept most of the time and grew her hair, along which the
sorceress then climbed into her tower.
So, there is a feeling that these Russian "volunteers" are living in
some kind of dream, like Rapunzel. This dream isolates them from a
holistic perception of the world around them, deprives them of empathy
and the ability to distinguish between good and evil. It's like children
who have not yet matured enough to take responsibility for their lives
and actions. In a sense, it is precisely this passive infantilism that
is the main enemy of anarchists: we need a society where everyone takes
responsibility for everyone, and everyone is responsible for each other.
A society of active and enterprising people.
Well, in the fairy tale of the Brothers Grimm, using the same hair that
the evil witch climbed into the tower, the good prince eventually
climbed there, with whom Rapunzel eventually escaped. Authoritarian
regimes always dig their own graves with their own practices: either
they name a research center at a university after an odious fascist, or
they start a war with a neighboring country. Through all this concrete
and barbed wire, paradoxically, rejection of the regime and the desire
for freedom grow. This is the kind prince who can wake up in everyone's
head. This is what we all wish for, as in the Straw Raccoons song called
"Song Against Sleep."
Well that's all for today! We remind you that in Trends in Order and
Chaos, members of Autonomous Action and other authors give anarchist
assessments of current events. Listen to us on YouTube, SoundCloud and
other platforms, visit our website avtonom.org, subscribe to our social
networks and e-mail newsletter.
Issue prepared by Mani
https://avtonom.org/news/rapuncel-prosnis-trendy-poryadka-i-haosa-epizod-154
_________________________________________
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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