There is just no escaping the absolute inadequacy of statism and nationalism for resolving questions of social justice. Here the Anarchist tradition has an old proposal that looks much more promising.
Alfredo Cospito's hunger strike has entered its most dire moments, as in response to the denial of his human rights, he has stopped taking dietary supplements - leaving him in extreme pain. Protests have broken out all across Italy, proclaiming that "The Struggle Does Not End". The Italian state has in turn launched a crackdown against the anarchist movement, carrying out mass raids and arresting anyone who dared express solidarity with their imprisoned comrade.
Here we publish statements from the Italian and Sicilian Anarchist Federations, who stand against this regime of death. Senza Galere, Senza Frontiere!
With the rejection of the request to revoke the 41-bis by the Court of Cassation, Alfredo Cospito's hunger strike enters an even more tragic phase. If he decides to take his struggle to the extreme, his name will be added to the long list of those who have died in prison because of the state.
The long and persistent anti-anarchist campaign that we have witnessed in recent months has been orchestrated so that the government and the judiciary could condemn him to death despite the vast solidarity movement that has been created and that has gone far beyond the boundaries of the anarchist movement.
For our part, we can only strongly reiterate our positions: we support the fight against the 41-bis, which we consider to be an instrument of torture, just as we fight against the hostile life sentence because we fight for a free and equal society, where exploitation and oppression are only a memory of an infamous past, as are prisons with all their suffering and death.
Whatever the outcome of this affair, which has once again demonstrated the government’s disregard for human life, we reaffirm that we will not be intimidated by repression and criminalisation campaigns.
We will continue to be in the streets and squares spreading our ideas and practices of struggle and freedom.
They would like to isolate us, marginalise us, silence us, but they will not succeed: we will continue to fight for anarchy every day among the exploited, in neighbourhoods, in work and study places, in social opposition movements.
No to 41-bis!
Long live anarchy!
Italian Anarchist Federation
(Correspondence Commission)
27 February 2023
Alfredo Cospito's fight has shown that it is possible to open a breach in the totalitarian institution of prison, provoking widespread discussion and reflection on the prison system, starting with the 41-bis and the hostile life sentence.
The judicial and government authorities thought of burying Alfredo in 41-bis but failed: his determination is already a victory.
The fascists in government want him dead, so that they can settle accounts once and for all with the anarchists; the direct heirs of the material perpetrators of the Piazza Fontana massacre and of the massacre era thus hope to erase that formidable season of struggles and social transformation that swept through the country.
The cruelty used to put Cospito to death at 41-bis is the same cruelty used with the migrants who die by the hundreds off our coasts.
Fascists of all stripes love Death. Anarchists are for Life. Whenever they have tried to eliminate us with deportations, wars, provocations and fabrications, the force of freedom, which is the essence of life, has always proved stronger.
Respectful of Alfredo's wishes, we nevertheless hope that he will live to continue his fight.
The war that crosses Europe, that modifies our existences, will never be a further pretext to repress us and to silence an Italy crossed by deep inequalities and a multitude of latent conflicts.
Our struggle builds a present and a tomorrow of solidarity.
Free Alfredo from 41-bis!
Without Jails, Without Borders!
Long live Anarchy!
Sicilian Anarchist Federation
9 March 2023
There is just no escaping the absolute inadequacy of statism and nationalism for resolving questions of social justice. Here the Anarchist tradition has an old proposal that looks much more promising.
In 2020, a record number of around 100,000 people6 lived in occupations in Belo Horizonte alone and the state of Minas Gerais had the second largest housing deficit in the country, with 500,000 homeless families.
Every genocide in history has had its foreign backers and profiteers. Prince Andrew, BP and the Tories of the APPGA should rightfully be seen no differently than the fascist sympathisers, industrialists and aristocrats that supported the Nazis.
Resistance also occurs in a form that is not at all confrontational, or in a very passive way. This is for example by pretending not to hear calls or orders, or pretending not to see officers present. Prison life is, in places, like a cat and mouse hide and seek.
The police kill and the justice system is complicit. The suburbs are veritable laboratories for state violence and outright racism, where people live under the constant watch of the police, who indulge in the worst acts with complete impunity.
Putin's regime is so repugnant that, on balance, any movement toward change is welcome. But one must realise that many of the possible scenarios are even darker than they are now. And some kind of anarchist scenario would be hypothetically possible only by our efforts. In such cases, the partisan response is to say: “Nobody but us”.