WORLD WORLDWIDE EUROPE ITALY SICILY - news journal UPDATE - (en) Italy, Sicilia Libertaria #457 - LASB - Books. Anarchy explained to children (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 A courageous choice by the publisher Risma to publish in Italian Anarchy

explained to children, a 1931 text prepared by José Antonio Emmanuel and
the Cosmos printing house "to answer - as the publishers wrote - the
question that several comrades asked us: how to educate my children? A
question that we expected to answer by adhering to the dictates of
Reason and Science". ---- The book is a manual of libertarian political
pedagogy whose meaning can only be understood by immersing oneself in
the years of the Second Spanish Republic, in the revolutionary ferment
that animated Iberian society, in the great hold that anarchism had
among the weakest social classes, that is, the majority of the
population. For this reason, its content is extremely advanced, even
more modern than what could be achieved today with similar projects.

Despite the almost century that has passed, this manual focuses in no
uncertain terms on the terms of relations between classes. It is not a
book to indoctrinate but to give precise answers useful for
understanding the condition of the children of the proletariat.
Therefore, speaking of Anarchy, of capitalism, of clericalism, of
militarism was not a rhetorical exercise but a normality and a need felt
in a world in which power exercised - as always - its daily violence on
the flesh of the people.

Let's try to imagine those children of comrades discussing exploitation,
violence, prison, of bourgeois and priests, of rich and poor, with their
teachers, in order to understand well the meaning of words embodied in
their daily life.

Consequently, Anarchy is nothing other than the answer to all this, the
solution to which to commit so that an authentic liberation can
materialize. An idea of the possible and necessary change within
everyone's reach.

Those comrades - and I'm sure there were some - would be wrong who,
simply by reading the title, thought they could use this book to talk
about Anarchy with their children. The book is too far ahead despite
being 100 years old, it is a Martian book, far from our times. Exactly
as that particular historical period in which the experiment of the
Spanish revolution matured was and continues to be.

The author explains to children what Anarchy is (first chapter) and how
to get to Anarchy (second chapter) indicating three powerful forces to
leverage: school, the union, the libertarian university, that is, the
places of cultural, moral and political growth of individuals, places of
organization, solidarity and conflict. Three books are recommended that,
by the age of 12, every child should have read and that should not be
missing from the library of every libertarian school: Universal Pain by
Sebastian Faure, The Conquest of Bread by Peter Kropotkin and History of
a Mountain by Elisée Reclus.

The third chapter is entitled How to be worthy of Anarchy?: "To identify
with Anarchy and live a worthy life you must follow these anarchist
principles". 10 points follow, accompanied by as many graphics:

1) Help. (...) every time you see a brother, help him. Above the
frontiers erected by privilege, reach out to anyone who is a victim of
the current bourgeois society. 2) Support. Give support to those who
waver, give courage to those who despair because success seems far away.
(...). 3) Copy the beautiful. (...) raise your gaze above this infamous
chaos and contemplate the beauty of Life. 4) Work. (...) Do not resign
yourself to being a slave to the machine, a slave to muscles. Give
dignity to work, make it beautiful, pure. 5) Study. Let the book be your
best friend, your advisor, your guide. We will never know enough. He who
adds knowledge, adds

Anarchy (...). 6) Love. Knowledge does not put millstones in the heart.
A pure and human love makes others part of us. However distant, however
far away, each person is dear to us. 7) Protect. Those who love a lot,
help a lot. Protect the weakest. (...) Think of those who are not with
us: those who are prisoners, those who, for having fought, for having
defended us, have lost their freedom. Remember them! 8) Cotliva. The
earth is your mother; the countryside is your sustenance. If we
cultivate them, we will have sweet fruits and abundant harvests. Do not
leave any land barren. Give the earth the care it needs so that it can
give you food and life. In the ideal world, sow ideas, spread thoughts,
write and act. (...). 9) Do not bully. (...) do not enslave anyone. You
have no right to imprison birds or any living being with impunity. Open
the doors of all cages, file down the bars of all prisons (...). Be free
and make others free as you are. Open wide the doors of your heart to
let out all the vices, all the defects that have managed to penetrate
there. Be free, be pure: do not abuse anyone and do not let yourself be
abused. 10) Commit yourself. Work and fight, Anarchy tells you. Before
they told you "work and pray". (...) commit yourself for the good of
humanity, so that suffering ends, so that torments cease, so that
unhappiness disappears forever. Be happy among happy men. Be free among
free men.

In the 10 points that we have just summarized, we can see the universal
value of anarchist ethics, which rides time and things, remaining a
guiding principle for free beings of yesterday, today and tomorrow and
gives us the dimension of the value of this small great text.

In the appendix to the volume we find a useful explanation on
Libertarian Pedagogy and the Second Spanish Republic, on the author and
on the Cosmos printing house.

Pippo Gurrieri

José Antonio Emmanuel, Anarchy explained to children, Risma, Milan 2022,
illustrated, hardback, 47 pages, 19 euros.

https://www.sicilialibertaria.it/
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