L’apparition dans les rues du Caire, en janvier 2013, du Black Bloc égyptien a déclenché une candide euphorie dans les cercles anarchistes occidentaux. Aucun intérêt n’a été accordé à la ligne politique du Black Block – ou à son absence -, à ses stratégies ou à ses prises de positions sur le plan économique et social. Pour la majorité des anarchistes occidentaux, il leur a suffi que les membres du Black Bloc leur ressemblent et qu’ils soient vêtus comme eux pour susciter en leur sein une admiration inconditionnelle. Les pages Facebook des anarchistes israéliens furent inondées de photos d’activistes du Black Bloc en question. Parcourir la blogosphère des anarchistes américains, pendant cette période, donne l’impression que ce Black Bloc marquait la première rencontre que l’Égypte ait jamais connu avec l’anarchisme ou l’anti-autoritarisme.

Desde algunas semanas ya, escuchamos desde muches la necesidad de expresarse respecto a lo que “acontece ahora en Gaza”. Argumentos que llegan incluso a sugerir que una nueva guerra comenzó, se han vuelto comunes en espacios radicales o incluso en círculos anárquicos. Desde que la fuga en Gaza ocurriera, la lucha por la liberación del pueblo palestino, sufre en Alemania de ser reducida a las acciones de Hamas. El estado Alemán, partidos políticos, e incluso aveces compañeres, están muy preocupases de que tan cerca o lejos una pueda estar de las ideas Hamas. Al mismo tiempo, muy poco sobe las raíces históricas de una guerra-asimétrica que lleva ya mas de 70 años es considerado en las discusiones por estas posiciones.

Seit einigen Wochen hören wir von Vielen von der Notwendigkeit sich hinsichtlich der “Geschehnisse in Gaza” zu äußern. Argumente, die darauf hindeuten, dass ein neuer Krieg begonnen habe, sind weit verbreitet, auch in radikalen oder anarchistischen Kreisen. Seit dem Ausbruch aus Gaza hat der palästinensische Kampf um Befreiung in Deutschland stark unter der Reduzierung auf die Aktionen der Hamas gelitten. Der deutsche Staat, Politiker*innen und manchmal sogar unsere Mitstreiter*innen sorgen sich sehr darum, wie nah oder fern man sich zu den Ideen der Hamas positioniert. Zum historischen Kontext eines asymmetrischen Krieges, welcher nun schon mehr als 70 Jahre andauert, wird dabei jedoch nur wenig gesagt. Ein andauerndes Massaker an der palästinensischen Bevölkerung begann bereits zu der Zeit des britischen Kolonialismus, assistiert durch die Errichtung eines Apartheidregimes in einer künstlich geschaffenen Siedler*innengesellschaft.

Since a couple of weeks, we have heard from many about the necessity of expressing themselves regarding what is “happening now in Gaza”. Arguments that seem to almost suggest that a new war has started are common even in radical or anarchist circles. Since the break out from Gaza took place, the Palestinian struggle for liberation has been suffering in Germany from being reduced to Hamas’ actions. The German State, political parties, and even sometimes our comrades, are very concerned about how far or close one can be towards Hamas’ ideas. But very little about the historical roots of an asymmetric war that has lasted more than 70 years is brought into discussion by these positions. An ongoing massacre of Palestinian people has been happening since the days of British colonialism, assisted by the establishment of an apartheid regime in an artificially created settler society.

En mayo de 2023, cuando Mauricio García asesinó a ocho personas en un centro comercial en Allen, Texas, parecía otro asesinato masivo sin sentido, similar a los tiroteos en las escuelas. Pero cuando se supo que se identificaba como neonazi, se propagó la indignación: decir que un latino era así fue demasiado para muchos.

Als Mauricio Garcia im Mai 2023 in einem Einkaufszentrum in Allen, Texas, acht Menschen tötete, schien die Tat nur ein weiterer sinnloser Massenmord zu sein, ähnlich wie die unzähligen Schießereien an Schulen. Doch als herauskam, dass er sich als Neonazi identifizierte, machte sich Empörung breit: Einen Latino so zu bezeichnen, war für viele einfach zu viel.

In May 2023, when Mauricio Garcia killed eight people in an outlet mall in Allen, Texas, it seemed like just another senseless mass murder similar to innumerable school shootings. But when it came out that he identified as a neo-nazi, outrage spread: calling a Latino that was just too much for many.

The only thing more embarrassing than the enduring presence of the anachronistic imperial ethnological museum into the twenty-first-century is an imperial ethnological museum attempting a political rebrand as though to justify its existence despite being housed in a recently rebuilt Prussian palace. Upon entering the grand lobby of the Humboldt Forum in Berlin, you—the museum-going audience—are met with a series of challenging questions on bright pink and orange banners: discursive prompts about appropriation, Eurocentrism, and taste to anticipate your experience. Translated into both English and German, the banners illustrate the nauseating institutional virtue signaling to which publics have been subjected, particularly after the global protests following the murder of George Floyd and accompanying discourses about colonial monuments. Simultaneously, they read as self-satisfied rhetorical questions, the kind that an obviously guilty person in power asks aloud in perpetuity as a substitute for even beginning to conceive of changing their behavior. Despite being an internationally renowned and world-class museum (and thus, universally accessible), the banner’s first question immediately narrows and truncates its audience: “How would you feel if your belongings were taken and displayed in a museum?” It’s a provocative question that, for many, is far from hypothetical. The global Indigenous demand for the restitution of human remains—and valuable cultural artifacts—pales in the face of the museum’s apparent need to display those objects in pleasing indexical formations behind glass display cases. The orderly museum, in other words, is a purveyor of psychic violence.

In this new, even more horrifying phase of the 75 year long occupation of Palestine by Israel, it is important to give a platform to Palestinians struggling against ethnic cleansing.

Below, Freedom reproduces a transcript of a talk with Uri Gordon on the current situation in Palestine and Israel organised by Infolibre Thessaloniki.

Hattest du jemals das Gefühl, dein Job wäre ausgedacht? Dass die Welt sich weiter drehen würde, wenn du nicht 8 Stunden deine Tätigkeit verrichten würdest? David Graeber erkundete das Phänomen der unsinnigen Jobs für unsere jüngste Sommerausgabe—jeder, der berufstätig ist, sollte sorgfältig lesen…

In the year 1930, John Maynard Keynes predicted that, by century's end, technology would have advanced sufficiently that countries like Great Britain or the United States would have achieved a 15-hour work week. There's every reason to believe he was right. In technological terms, we are quite capable of this. And yet it didn't happen. Instead, technology has been marshaled, if anything, to figure out ways to make us all work more. In order to achieve this, jobs have had to be created that are, effectively, pointless. Huge swathes of people, in Europe and North America in particular, spend their entire working lives performing tasks they secretly believe do not really need to be performed. The moral and spiritual damage that comes from this situation is profound. It is a scar across our collective soul. Yet virtually no one talks about it.

Black Anarchic Notes

Der Rechtsruck in Deutschland macht Angst. Auf der diskursiven Ebene verbreitet sich der Gedanke "uns Deutschen fehl es, weil den Flüchtlingen zu viel gegeben wird". Daraus folgt Verschärfung der indirekten Morde im Mittelmeer und der Hetze gegen Flüchtlinge im Land. Was kann dem diskursiv entgegengesetzt werden? Die radikale Linke versucht dem seit Jahren eine komplexe Kapitalismusanalyse entgegenzusetzen, welche aber fast nur unter Studierenden in den linken Szenen der Großstädte angenommen wird. Dies war nicht immer so und hat Gründe, die veränderbar sind. Eine Analyse des Problems und ein Vorschlag für eine neue Taktik.

This report back was written by one affinity group. It principally relies on our experiences, what we read on twitter, and what other trusted comrades reported to us.

Another harsh winter of the coronavirus pandemic is coming. Cases have risen well above levels seen in the winter of 2020–21, and while many of us are vaccinated, we’re looking at potential increased spread because of the newly discovered omicron variant. Lockdowns are already returning to the most severely impacted Bundesländer, and while many of us are succumbing to crisis fatigue, the Querdenker and other conspiracy theorists may see any efforts to minimize the spread of the coronavirus as renewed onslaught against them and their “freedom.” Anti-lockdown riots are popping up around the world and Europe, and in particular the Netherlands. They are often dominated by right-wing extremists and conspiracy theorists. Should such riots appear around Germany, we need to continue to hold the line that this a three-way fight: we side with neither the State nor the insurrectionary right-wing.

When the El Paso shooter committed his personal ideology to a manifesto, he saw fit to include anti-imperialism and environmental politics, just like the shooter in Christchurch. Fundamentally subscribing to a biologically racist worldview that abhors inter-racial couples, his manifesto, if real, spoke of an overpopulated, polluted world in which corporations use racial underclasses to undermine workers and tip demographic scales in favor of liberalism. That conservatives largely reject environmental legislation did not phase the author of the manifesto, who concludes by insisting that corporations be brought to heel under a confederated system of ethno-states in what is now the United States. Importantly, the El Paso shooter confessed to being motivated, in part, by the manifesto of the Christchurch mass shooter, who also embraced green fascism.

From the time anarchism was first defined as a distinct radical movement it has been associated with the left, but the association has always been uneasy. Leftists who were in a position of authority (including those who called themselves anarchists, like the leaders of the CNT and the FAI in Spain in 1936–37) found the anarchist aim of the total transformation of life and the consequent principle that the ends should already exist in the means of struggle to be a hindrance to their political programs. Real insurgence always burst far beyond any political program, and the most coherent anarchists saw the realization of their dreams precisely in this unknown place beyond. Yet, time after time, when the fires of insurrection cooled (and even occasionally, as in Spain in 1936–37, while they still burnt brightly), leading anarchists would take their place again as “the conscience of the left”. But if the expansiveness of anarchist dreams and the principles that it implies have been a hindrance to the political schemes of the left, these schemes have been a far greater millstone around the neck of the anarchist movement, weighing it down with the “realism” that cannot dream.

So there was a demonstration and some people got a little militant and maybe broke some windows. Chances are the demonstration wasn’t a rally against the existence of windows so this may not look like the smartest of moves to you. In fact, it probably seems pretty asinine. A broken shop window doesn’t really hurt those in power yet it probably rose more than a few folks’ hackles. Vandalism and a few street scuffles with the cops obviously aren’t potent enough to directly overcome the state by force so why bother if it’s going to turn a lot of people against you?

On the night of August 8th, 2009, hundreds of inmates at the California Institution for Men in Chino rioted for 11 hours, causing “significant and extensive” damage to the medium-security prison. Two hundred and fifty prisoners were injured, with fifty-five admitted to the hospital.

From Occupy to Ferguson, whenever a new grassroots movement arises, pundits charge that it lacks clear demands. Why won’t protesters summarize their goals as a coherent program? Why aren’t there representatives who can negotiate with the authorities to advance a concrete agenda through institutional channels? Why can’t these movements express themselves in familiar language, with proper etiquette?

“There’s no ethical consumption under capitalism” is a tired meme that I wish would die. So often this slogan is used by reds to pooh-pooh those of us that strive to make life choices that aid harm-reduction in our communities and our natural environments.

tl;dr: Die Pandemie hat auch die radikale Linke gespalten. Verschwörungsmystische Narrative sind bis tief in unsere Szene vorgedrungen. Wie sich das auswirken kann, zeigt sich bei der Organisation von Anarchy 2023. Das geplante Jubiläums-Treffen in St. Imier wird (Stand heute, macht bitte Druck!) ohne jegliche COVID-Schutzmassnahmen organisiert und geplant. Mindestens einer der Hauptorganisatoren hat sich bei den Covid-19-Massnahmengegner-Demos engagiert.

tl;dr: The pandemic has polarized political discourse – even within the radical left. Conspiracy narratives have penetrated deep into our circles. How this can manifest i had to observe in the organization of Anarchy 2023. The planned meeting in St. Imier is (as of today, please protest!) organized and planned without COVID-19-precautions. At least one of the main organizers was involved in the movement of anti-maskers and COVID-deniers.