Repression is the response of an increasingly desperate imperialist ruling clique to contain an otherwise uncontrollable and growing popular disaffection leading ultimately, we think, to the revolutionary transformation of society.
– Angela Davis
You have to understand that people have to pay the price for peace. If you dare to struggle, you dare to win. If you dare not to struggle then god damn it, you don’t deserve to win.
– Fred Hampton
The uprisings ongoing in America, a response to the police brutality that murdered George Floyd, are underlining the racist origins of the american states, founded on genocide and built by slaves. …
The violence of state forces against black and other people of colour has sparked massive social unrest. Even in the heart of the former Confederacy, we are witnessing resistance on a massive scale against racially motivated killings by police. For centuries, countless people have been kidnapped from their homelands and forced to build countries which, in return, have oppressed and murdered them. This is a long term existential struggle that has made significant strides, but has never been able to fully resolve the inherent racist contradictions at the foundation of the american societies. In the US, the regime has very clearly lost control, and is now sending an occupying army in an attempt to maintain order. The people are surrounding the White House as the president cowers in a bunker and the stores of the wealthy from Beverly hills to Manhattan have been relieved of their luxury goods. In Brazil, outraged protests are challenging the fascist government that has been threatening the poor, people of colour and indigenous communities. From the favelas to the jungles in Amazonas, from the coffee fields to the suburbs of the overcrowded cities, resistance is spreading and uniting their voices proclaiming that “Black lives matter”. And this resistance is being organized not only in America but also in Europe, in Asia, in Middle East, and of course, in Africa.
Uprisings are important, they remind us we have the power to change things. But we also know that the nation-states will use every means to prevent a revolutionary process and maintain the status quo – police, military and paramilitary, jails, torture, media manipulation, counter intelligence operations. In order to defend ourselves we have to transform this spring of rage into organized resistance, not only with capacity of self-defense but also able to develop alternatives, to develop a meaningful struggle, to develop free life. We have to show our commitment and determination to continue the path that we are walking, the path that so many freedom fighters walked before us, whatever consequences may come. This can only be achieved by engaging with society, with the community, cultivating true love and comradeship among our friends and allies, and struggling together for a better world. We need to regain faith that another world is possible, and we need to do it together, because “If not we, who? If not now, when?”. We need to educate ourselves to build our own truth, able to challenge the lies they tried to make us swallow. To believe in our own strength and recover the trust in ourselves, that makes us able to stand up and shout loudly and full of pride that “I am a revolutionary”.
From the front lines of the Rojava Revolution we support these uprisings unflinchingly, and encourage all revolutionary comrades to do the same. People should not be oppressed and regarded as inferior for their skin color, gender, social class, ethnic or religious identity. We have to get rid of borders and hierarchies that divide us. Let’s come together through solidarity and self organization. Let’s come together and build a free life beyond the state. All revolutionary struggles have the same horizon, and only by mutual aid and international solidarity we can face the violence and oppression of this system of capitalist modernity. The antiracist struggle has to come hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder, with the antipatriarchal struggle, the class struggle and the ecological struggle. Because it is the women, the poor, the black, the queer, the colonized, the indigenous, all the oppressed and dispossessed of the world, who can build a world where other worlds are possible.
We’re going to fight racism not with racism, but we’re going to fight with solidarity. We say we’re not going to fight capitalism with black capitalism, but we’re going to fight it with socialism. We’ve stood up and said we’re not going to fight reactionary pigs and reactionary state’s attorneys (…) with any other reactions on our part. We’re going to fight their reactions with all of us people getting together and having an international proletarian revolution.
– Fred Hampton
Victory to all those fighting for black liberation and anti colonial resistance!
Long live international solidarity!
Têkoşîna Anarşîst
June, 2020
