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.
When popular opposition to his pension “reform” became too strong, French president Macron desperately resorted to invoking the French constitution's article 49.3 and forcing through his programme without so much as a single vote cast. That night, the streets of Paris spontaneously combusted. Strikes have intensified. Opposition to the reform has only strengthened. Here we publish a response to the government’s rising authoritarianism from the Francophone Anarchist Federation.
We anarchists have been denouncing the authoritarianism of representative and parliamentary systems for almost 200 years.
We tirelessly dissect the methods and mechanisms of power to expose the deception, which consists in disguising the subjugation of the people as an unsurpassable universal democracy.
We relentlessly accuse governments of all colours, bosses of all stripes and clergy of all superstitions of organising our servitude and stifling our thirst for freedom through fear and injustice.
Today, the actors of the democratic masquerade have lost their costume: the government, against the clear and determined will of a large majority of the population, simply displays the most crass contempt, otherwise known as the 49.3.
So the masks have fallen off? No more pretence?
Let's do it!
Let us respond with open hearts!
Without fear of expressing our desires!
Without forgetting that they are incompatible with their nauseating world!
Self-management and libertarian federalism!
Long live the social and libertarian revolution!
Long live anarchy!
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”.