WORLD WORLDWIDE EUROPE FRANCE - news journal UPDATE - (en) France, OCL: Enough with the thought police and control society in activist circles! (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

One of our comrades from Ariège was verbally threatened and physically intimidated during the Résistances festival in Foix because she allegedly made remarks deemed transphobic by rumor at a meeting against landmines... --- As this situation is not isolated, we are publishing the following statement:

Enough with the thought police and control society in activist circles!
For several years now, we have witnessed, within so-called radical circles, a proliferation of methods used to ostracize groups or individuals under the pretext of deviant conduct or thought. We condemn the practice of defaming or spreading rumors about a person in order to disqualify them from political debate. Unfounded accusations, unrelated to the objective of the struggle, are launched to avoid debate. This takes us back to the dark days of Stalinism, regardless of the ideology to which the accusers refer.

These attacks do nothing to advance the struggles, contrary to what some might think, believing that a movement is strengthened by purging itself. These are tactics found in authoritarian circles, and which we fiercely oppose as libertarians. This ostracism and this way of thinking about the individual at the center of political concerns are perfectly compatible with the atomization that capitalism fosters, and are merely a variation on the state's strategy of demonizing opposing forces in order to discredit them (e.g., "ecoterrorism," "LFI's antisemitism"). These practices feed on and exacerbate the decline of the struggles, which reinforces the tendency to render the class struggle invisible.

Let us remember that social struggles are by definition impure and contain contradictions that must be accepted while simultaneously being open to discussion within the movement. For the movement is a dynamic process, and while discussions, debates, and arguments certainly lead to individual progress, we must not lose sight of the collective interest and the building of power dynamics.

Burning books, slandering, physically intimidating people, and vandalizing places under the pretext of disagreements are unacceptable. "No freedom for the enemies of freedom" can only lead to totalitarianism and silence all critical thought because, on the contrary, freedom is first and foremost the freedom of those who think differently.

Libertarian Communist Organization

https://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article4753
_________________________________________

Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca