On the occasion of the Day of Solidarity with Long Term Anarchist Prisoners, we are once again humbled in front of all those comrades who are paying the price of our fight with their imprisonment. This humility leads us to our responsibility, to show to you with action, not words, that we continue to fan the flames of our fight and of our dreams.
We are an Anarchist organization, Têkoşîna Anarşîst, and we are writing to you from the front lines of the Rojava revolution in North East Syria. Here, we have joined with the democratic and revolutionary forces of Kurds, Arabs, Syriacs, Assyrians, Armenians and others, taking up arms against the fascist forces of ISIS and the Turkish state.
Resistance cannot exist without risk and sacrifice. It is only by those sacrifices that any struggles for freedom have managed to resist the forces of oppression and domination. It is only by those sacrifices that we have the chance to continue the fight today. Those who speak of “struggle” while being unwilling to risk anything themselves are merely trying to ease their own conscience with liberal platitudes; the effect of their “struggle” will be nothing.
We want to acknowledge the risks you took, the sacrifices you’ve made, that have led to the repression against you, and with that against all of us. You are not alone in this fight for freedom. We do not forget those who have fallen in struggle before us, who have paved the way for us today. Likewise, we do not forget you who are in the clutches of the enemy, our comrades in struggle, and we continue to fight for your freedom as well.
Do not forget that the struggle must continue on all fronts: here in the war-torn fronts where empire meets those who reject it, there in the dungeons of imperialism itself. We must not only struggle with the enemy in front of us, but also those within, in our communities and in our own selves. We must confront the effects of capitalist socialization, in our thinking and in the ways we relate to each other. In the isolation that capitalism tries to impose on us, both inside the prison and outside, we can become our own enemy.
Be strong in this fight. Your struggle is part of a long and proud tradition of fierce and principled resistance from within the centers of state repression. As Malatesta said almost a hundred years ago, “We anarchists can all say that we are of the same party, if by the word ‘party’ we mean all who are on the same side, that is, who share the same general aspirations and who, in one way or other, struggle for the same ends against common adversaries and enemies.” We are many who fight along side you, on both sides of those walls.
From us in the arid lands of the first libertarian revolution of the 21st century to you, our comrades in struggle,
Revolutionary greetings & respect,
Têkoşîna Anarşîst
11 June 2023
