L

Fragment: Violence

III

VII

VIII

This short text is part of a collection of critical writings in progress concerning “civil anarchism”, as put forth by Venona Q. and Dark Matter publications, which is a response to a statement by the UK Anarchist Federation/Libcom denouncing the non-fatal shooting of CEO Roberto Adinolfi of Ansaldo Nucleare in Genoa, Italy [1]. Two anarchist comrades, Nicola Gai and Alfredo Cospito are accused of the action, which was claimed by Olga Cell-FAI/FRI. Solidarity to the accused, who are imprisoned in Ferrara, Italy. This fragment is simply a meandering series of thoughts, the results of a notepad and a rainy afternoon, rather than a ‘manifesto’ or the kind of dry political statement that it is in response to.

I

“By having carried out dozens of attacks against targets of the system, with especially destructive material results, we were and will always be precise. We aim specifically against the institutions and the officers of the system, giving special attention to not injure someone who is not a target to us.” CCF

Violence is neither good nor bad.

It is the State’s basis for it’s domination and consent. Any one who breaks this relationship is usually deemed criminal and/or insane. Any acts used in this transgression are usually deemed “unlawful” or further, “terrorism”.

II

“There are no innocents. We all make part of the social machine of Power. The question is whether we are oil or sand in its gears. Therefore, we reject the notion of the apparent innocence of society. Silence is never innocent. We hate both the hand that holds the whip and the back which passively endures it.” CCF

The willing citizens, media, police, law courts, judges, prisons and military are the lines of defence for the order of this relationship in Society. Anarchist violence is the shattering of this order, the reclamation/expression of our power and the rupture of the complicity of the submissive crowd. It is the seizure of the existent reality and the beginning of its destruction.

III

“Life obtains value based on the choices every individual makes.” CCF

It is obviously still needed to say that when anarchists use force, it is never indiscriminate. The civil anarchists, whose sole domain really is in the realm of politics, react to the rhetoric of “terrorism” which is imposed by the State by merely repeating their dogmas about “risking the lives” of postal and clerical workers. It’s clearly a matter of technical and operational questions, to strike the intended target, but I won’t cry for the secretaries of Swissnuclear [2], the Chief Director of Equitalia [3], nor for the boss of Ansaldo Nucleare. Nor will I be alarmed if an employee of an embassy is harmed, for everyone other than idiots understands what those places represent. The new anarchist guerrillas don’t look for clemency based on their clear targeting but express their opposition in their own terms in their own ways.

IV

“The tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction” William Blake

The civil anarchists draw the same line as the Marxists regarding the “criminals” and themselves: “Good people” who are within the laws of their self-designed parameters of behaviour and the “bad people” who are condemned by their rules. Outside of the UK many of the comrades have a much closer relationship to “violence” and “criminality” through bank robberies, organising attacks, fierce demos, stealing, fraud, counterfeiting etc. and added to that possibility the experience of clandestinity or living underground. Illegalism is the bread of the insurrection. Many have gone to prison already and we can learn about their cases in many places. In the UK there is a widespread lack of experience concerning the organisation of the attack, the recognition of the ideas and relationships of the affinity groups to the “criminal acts”. Going beyond the law is part of developing the anarchist-insurrectional project and this is part of the reason why the civil anarchists despise and neglect the cases of the imprisoned and fugitive comrades- because they reject their actions, the tendencies of attack and the global discourse of anarchists of praxis. Individual acts of violence/negation which are not approved by their group-think are regarded as part of the “criminal” or “terrorist” sphere and smeared as provocations. In this way, the civil anarchists become part of the discourse of power and compose themselves as a sector of repression.

Ask yourselves, in all their rhetoric of the “worker” – where is the “criminal”? Not all “criminals” are rebels but there is an entire world which is not touched upon. It is not a mistake, the civil anarchists despise criminals and do not seek the end of prisons, simply their reformation. They are scared of the anti-social mob, King Mob, who has come back to torch all the houses of the politico-meritocrats and burn the city, because the civil anarchists are ‘the cops of the future’.

For the civil anarchists, essentially in their Christian-socialist thinking, the ‘worker’ is simply one who toes the line in their projection, does what everybody else does, does not take more than he is due as a worker and will only ask for more, but seldom take. The “criminal” does not toe the line, she is an Outsider. The criminal takes what they want, even more than they need, and bows to no one. The criminal is not to be managed by the civil servants or the civil anarchists, and so the criminal is excluded from their conversation. Or suppressed. It’s the same process for the uncontrollable Unique.

V

“For us, there is no middle ground. They who declare openly their anarchist intentions are facing a decisive dilemma, to either act or give up anarchy forever. There can never be anarchy at the rear of coffee shops and gossiping… Either act or shut up…” Conspiracy of Cells of Fire-FAI/IRF — Consciousness Gangs-FAI/IRF — Sole–Baleno Cell

Attacks are the primary goal of the new anarchist urban guerrillas, to disrupt the patterns of activity of functionaries, conduits and engines of the economy-megamachine, and to spread terror amongst the included classes. Destruction of banks, businesses, electrical infrastructure, internet transmission, mobile phone, television, radio antennas and attacks on technologies of domination might not be properly defined as “violence” or “terrorism”, but the blows they inflict are troubling enough to the authorities to be regarded as such by them. Property destruction aggravates the enemy and the submissive crowd, and has a clear insurrectional purpose. I reject the “non-violent” label often attached to actions of sabotage, and consider them part of the polymorphous struggle reaching beyond such definitions that benefit social control.

Anarchist violence is “criminal” in the sense that it goes against sociable expectations of order and consensus, so it is probably perfectly acceptable to presume -especially within the post-industrial core, where the sense of social peace is high- that the closest enemies the anarchists can expect trying to prevent them enacting their deeds are other anarchists, -civil anarchists- those who are eager to avoid repression and carry on with their harmless routines in the metropolises of the world.

VI

“We speak through fire. To remember and always keep on our mind, our sisters and brothers who are kidnapped by the state and seized behind bars. To continue the urban guerilla warfare against enemies of freedom. Let the action speak for us.” Anger Unit FAI/FRI Indonesia

The shooting of CEO Roberto Adinolfi I do not regard as being particularly “violent”, more an anarchist act of free will and liberty. These acts are sadly rare and do not happen with enough frequency, it’s a challenge to try harder. Certainly I consider such actions should be one of the constitutive parts of any anarchic insurgency, and despite the elitist bleating of the civil anarchists I am really yet to get upset that the Federazione Anarchica Italiana share the same acronym as the Federazione Anarchica Informale. This is because it’s not necessary to give glasses to someone who cannot read. It’s been ten years since the Federazione Anarchica Italiana declared that the Federazione Anarchica Informale was a police phantom. A false opinion that the civil anarchists in UK eagerly parroted for a decade already because it suited their blind politics. In their statement decrying the shooting of Adinolfi, they conflate separate actions of attack as the acts of a singular group, but the FAI does not exist in the way that they like to portray, not incidentally, it’s the same way that repression promotes in manoeuvres like Operation Ardire, the Marini Case etc. In this way they try to spread the lies around, so for what goes for one, it goes for the other, a priori.

Their aim was denunciation and suppression of an uncontrollable new anarchic tendency, which threatens their organisations. They fear criminalisation of their hobby-groups, drinking holes and minor events, so they aid in the criminalisation of the next generation of anarchic struggle and attempt to repress it. As they have made their decisions, we have made ours, and the results are there for any one to see – an informal international insurrectional force that multiplies and doesn’t rely on one single line, theory or method, and is true to the anarchist ideas. I return the charges of ‘vanguardism’ and ‘elitism’ back to the controlling organisations of civil anarchist tedium and reserve. I do not need to become a signed up member of a centralising political cult and give a percentage of my income to the committee to be an anarchist! Or to organise!

For them, Capitalism is only a “social relationship” which can never be changed without adhering to the “aims and principles” of their formal organisation which speaks of a “culture of resistance” that there is no evidence of them ever creating in any concrete way. Speaking for myself at least, Capitalism is only a small part of the domination I face today with my comrades scattered around the world, that fight against the totality of the existent and accept all anarchist methods and consequences of using them. The international actions of the FAI/IRF and the anarchists of praxis are more than just vapid hot air and vacuous socialist propaganda speaking of “a world where our whole lives are really under our own control”.

VII

“Moreover, do not forget that actions follow speech” CCF

Unlike the civil anarchists, I consider there to be no essential difference in validity between individual or collective revolutionary anarchist-insurrectional violence, whether it comes out of a “broad based class-struggle movement” or not. A small action or a big one; a minor fracas or a large riot; a banner drop, a broken window, a trashed corporate office, a burned bank; an act of solidarity, a favour, a gift, a meal, a bed; a pamphlet, an article, a poster or a spray-painted slogan can eventually become a bullet in the head of authority, and remains as valued by the new anarchist black international.

VIII

“FAI/IRF is an international conspiracy of anarchists of praxis that sets fire on the defensive positions of reformist society-ist anarchists. It gets rid of the smell of mold that has settled in anarchy seen at amphitheatres, and fills the air with the smell of gunpowder, black anarchy, night-time, explosions, gunshots, sabotages. This explains why the International Revolutionary Front of FAI and Conspiracy is on top of the anarchist dangers list as cited in recent Europol reports.” Conspiracy of Cells of Fire-FAI/IRF — Consciousness Gangs-FAI/IRF — Sole–Baleno Cell

In this collapsing world I consider my words, ideas and deeds as raindrops that add to a storm of catastrophic proportions that my known and unknown comrades are bringing forth. It is already causing havoc across the world and the pressure fronts still build. Together with other wild, violent Unique ones we will meet in the days and the nights to commit crimes against Society and the State.

A hug to my friend Giannis Naxakis [4]. An incendiary hug to all the imprisoned comrades.

[1] 7 May 2012 — Genova, Italy: Roberto Adinolfi, chief executive of Ansaldo Nucleare, a company linked to Italian defence conglomerate Finmeccanica, was shot in the street outside his house in Genoa in northern Italy. The bullet fractured his right knee but he is not in a serious condition. Finmeccanica controls Ansaldo Energia, the parent of Ansaldo Nucleare.

[2] 30 March 2011 – Olten, Switzerland: A package bomb exploded in the offices of Swissnuclear (the Federation of the Swiss nuclear industry) giving two office workers superficial burns. The attack was claimed by the FAI.

[3] 09 December 2011 – Rome, Italy: Chief Director Marco Cuccagna of Italy’s tax collection office, Equitalia, receives a letter-bomb which explodes after he opens it, causing damage to his hands, blowing off part of his finger and almost blinding him after his glass desk shatters in the explosion.

[4] 30 April 2013 — Athens, Greece: anarchists Yannis Naxakis and Grigoris Sarafoudis were arrested in the district of Nea Filadelfeia, as they were coming out of a cafeteria. At the same time, a large police force stormed the café and caught the anarchist fugitives Argyris Ntalios and Fivos Harisis-Poulos. Both comrades had arrest warrants pending against them since mid-February 2013 (after the double robbery in Velventos–Kozani and the incarceration of anarchists Andreas-Dimitris Bourzoukos, Dimitris Politis, Nikos Romanos and Yannis Michailidis). All four have been remanded in Koridallos prison, formally indicted on ‘terrorist organization’ charges based on DNA samples for separate bank robbery cases.