When they kcik at your front door
goettingen - 12.01.2011 13:28
we are calling for a demonstration on the 22nd of January, under the motto of
“An Injury to One is An Injury to All, Hands off of Our Activists, Structures, and Houses”
nieuw jaar, nieuwe kansen
Whey They Kick in Your Front Door…
On January 27th of 2010, police raided an autonomous collective home in the Rote Strasse in the city of Goettingen. This came following a small explosion in the kitchen of the “Landkreisamt” (a government office housing, among others, the offices of those who handle deportations and other immigration issues). Three days later, during a “Solidarity Demonstration Against State Repression”a young person was arrested on suspicion of having thrown a firecracker from within the demonstration. In his trial there has as of yet been no verdict, but this is of no concern to the prosecution- the person should be forced to give a DNA sample, because from him “further serious crimes” are to be expected. Should he not appear to give his DNA voluntarily, “coercive measures” will be effected upon him in order to obtain it.
(EDIT 09.01: The accused activist chose not to appear at his “date” with the Police on the 5th of January. Since 07.01 he is officially “wanted” by the German police.)
The investment of so much time and energy on behalf of Göttingens police and state prosecutor, and the co-operation of the judiciary begs the question…
Do they feel the fear?
Does the cop from Berlin see the images from Athens of thousands militantly confronting their Greek colleagues, and feel a cold chill down his spine?
Does a judge in Stuttgart read about the bomb which destroyed a courthouse in Athens, and worry because even in Europe more and more anti-state fighters show that they can strike anytime, anywhere?
Do petty city functionaries and university bureaucrats in dozens of nameless and forgettable German towns see the images of London, where masses of students filled the streets with rage and anger, and think twice about their choices?
Do union bureaucrats and other managers of social peace remember that in France, only a couple of months ago, tens of thousands of rank and file members defied their authority and chose the path of direct action and self-organization to confront the state and bosses?
Do politicians and warmongers think of Rome, and the thousands upon thousands who turned the city into a cauldron of unrest on December 14th, delivering a clear message of rejection for and rupture with this existence, and ponder what surprises the future may also hold for them?
Do they know, as we do, that even in the driest and most adverse of conditions, it still only takes a spark to start a prairie fire?
Chances are that, unfortunately, they don’t. Recent events on the “social movements” front in Germany have not given any of these people much reason to worry. The economy is “good,” “we” are all united as hard working decent patriots of the new Germany struggling to support the lazy, incompetent, and incapable countries of the European south, and the state is our friend protecting us from the misfits and dangers which may endanger the social peace. But still…
Preventive Repression
The German state regardless, either out of confidence in the strength of the social consensus that grants it its power, or out of preventive instincts aimed at weakening antagonistic elements in society before uprisings such as those rocking the periphery of the European territory can arise here, is anyways resorting to measures of preventive repression that were in the past either unknown, or politically and socially not justifiable.
The attacks against the politically conscious, the socially active, and especially youth and those choosing to engage the state from a perspective of extra-parliamentary and anti-state struggle begin at an ever earlier stage. The spectrum ranges from the experiences of recent times in Göttingen of massive police presence at demonstrations, raids, trials, and intimidatory surveillance measures, to Germany wide practices such as the singling out of young people for beatings and arrests at antifascist demonstrations, new demonstration laws which criminalize not the militant confrontation itself, but already the image or communication of this intent,the upcoming census of an unprecedented magnitude, to the ever more popular mainstream discourse of “extremism.”
The “extremist” label is used to not only disqualify movements and ideas, by presenting them simply as irrational threats posed to the objectivel y good “middle” by marginals and other “unstable elements,” but also putting those who struggle for a society free from nations, states, borders, and exploitation on the same moral and ideological terrain as the far-right and Neo-Nazis. This is not only factually and historically wrong, it also represents a clear attempt on behalf of those who structure the discourse of the status quo to prepare the framework for further, ever more extreme and “preventive” measures to isolate and weaken radical and revolutionary politics. It is a preventive war of ideas waged on society as a whole, and a “war” of repression waged specifically against those seen as dangerous to the existing order.
The Criminalization of Dissent and the Capitulation of Civil Society
The supposed “end of history” and the “end of ideology” have instead ushered us into an era of unprecedented ideological warfare directed at the whole of so called civil society. Our lives have become a battlefield in which we find ourselves constantly bombarded with propaganda of all shapes and colors, in all places, in all situations, at all time of the day. Marketing machines read our email to better sell us products, Facebook and other “social” networking sites develop “sales profiles” based on information freely given so that we can be “intimate” with the ideas of some marketing shark, politicians and “experts” feed us a constantly streamed discourse of a “clash of civilizations” with consumer capitalist representative democracy as only viable defense against the barbarians at the gates, while journalists of the boulevard press set their sights against demonstrators, dissidents, radicals, and other social revolutionaries by telling society that these are in fact no different from Nazis. The market names the targets, the press aims the gun, and the state pulls the trigger.
In light of this full frontal attack, it is no surprise that ever larger layers of society have long capitulated, allowing the spread of ideas that were once the fantasies of the extreme right ever further into the mainstream of society. The concept that privacy is only desired by evil minds with something to hide, that idea that massive walls need to be built to protect Europe from the rest of the world, the notion that police and state agencies need to be granted ever more powers to combat dissent and resistance, that a strong workers movement is a nuisance to be fought against.
More and more, the state does not rely on its brute force, but rather the power granted by the acceptance and resignation of a silent crowd who has learned to cheer for the “national successes,” to change mood with the button of the remote control, a crowd who hates fascists AND foreigners. In short, an ever growing mob of good citizens, silent to all outrages against humans, but revolting from their armchairs when the sanctity of order and property are threatened.
It is precisely the coverage of this mass, coupled with our current weakness as a movement, which prepares the framework that makes it possible for the state to treat demonstrations like prisoner transports, for cops to enter alternative bookstores dozens of times, which allows for courts to give the OK for a young demonstrators DNA to be saved for the rest of his life in the “verbrecherkartei” for being suspected of throwing a firecracker, and for absurd sentences to be handed out for actions which only marginally break with the confines of legality.
Liberation Will Always be Illegal – “Revolutionaries do not apologize to the criminals of the State.”
Legality has become the most current of “muzzling arguments.” For if it is true that this world is the best of all possible worlds, and this system the representation of the objective good in the form of the “reasonable middle,” then the laws which govern this world and are made by this system can only be interpreted as almost holy. So developed has this discourse become, that often even the most symbolic breakings of the law, such as blockades or property damage are reason enough for widespread howlings about “extremist violence” and “vandals” which need to be dealt with so that peace can be restored.
At the risk of sounding overly rhetorical, we must again pose the question of what kind of irrational and numbed society are we forced to live in where, despite workplace deaths, precarity and exploitation, thousands drowned and finding their deaths in the most horrific of ways at Europes borders, mass scale military aggressions led by the powers of the developed countries of the world, and all the other horrors of the systematic and calculated violence that is daily life…even a minute or a word is lost discussing the completely marginal, and very much justified, violence of the oppressed and of those who choose the path of resistance to the state and capitalism.
On the contrary, and we choose to say it with an ever greater urgency because this is what is demanded not only from us and for our own convictions, but because more and more are the sectors of society (in some places more, in others less), of youth, immigrants, students, precarious workers, unemployed, and all those who are “negative factors” in the equations of capitalism who are choosing to break with this system, and with the alleyways of dissent it offers.
It is urgent that we stand where we can and how we can in solidarity with antagonistic forces around us, and support them in the choices of resistance that they may make, whatever those may be.
The Act of Defiance
From the demonstration, to the blockade, to the sabotage, the defiant stance in a courtroom, the choice to not heed a “date,” the act of mass militance, or the conspiratorial act of a few enraged individuals…when confronted with the compliance, complicity, and social cannibalism which represent the norm, the act of defiance can only be welcomed. Every break with legality, every exercise in mass militance, every chain of locked arms against robocops, and every connection and network established with those like minded is a clear signal of rejection of this system, and a denial of the legitimacy of the state.
It is in the multiplication of common acts of resistance and defiance, alone as revolutionaries as well as together with the sectors of society who are discontent with the direction this society is being moved in, that we will provide the tools to multiply the voices which are willing and able to openly confront the state.
As far as the burnt out car, the stone in the bank, or the images of destruction in the wake of a militant demonstration…questions of guilt and innocence are matters for the courts of our enemies. We neither condone nor condemn. Indeed, we strictly don’t lose one word on such matters. Our job is that of solidarity, and of speaking about the conditions and outrages that lead to such actions.
The Praxis of Solidarity
We reject the defeatism that says that acts of defiance and resistance will inevitably draw upon them the weight of state repression, as this statement presents defeat, capture, arrests, and the likes as a fatality which they are not. But the reality is of course that friends and comrades do often enter into situations where they are faced with state repression. A repression aimed at making them feel isolated and alone, putting (extra) financial weight on their lives, or threatening to throw them into the cages it reserves for “criminals.” It is the practical solidarity of our defense structures, of our fundraising initiatives, of talks, discussions, and flyers to spread information about cases, and of demonstrations to show the “accused” that they are not alone, and the State that we refuse to be intimidated or divided.
This practical solidarity was felt in Göttingen 12 months ago the last time that the police decided to invade a collective home, as hundreds of people gathered to support those inside, and proceeded to a militant demonstration around the city. Days later, over 500 people stood firmly in solidarity with the “betroffene” and against further police attacks.
Integral to an effective practice of solidarity is also the conviction that, despite regional specifics and differences, we belong to a broad international revolutionary movement, and take a very literal understanding of the expression “one for all, and all for one.” Over the years we have engaged in common projects with friends and comrades from across Europe and beyond, and when solidarity was needed we stood together with and took to the streets for our friends in need. It is this praxis which has helped network us and strengthen our bonds, and it is this praxis which gives us the certainty that, should there be future attacks against our friends, our neighbors, our comrades, our houses, or our structures…we will certainly not stand alone!
Our World Against Theirs
Our practices of support and solidarity with the movements and individuals faced with state repression, and our defense of autonomous structures and spaces, are much more than simply defensive struggles. These fronts also represent tools and weapons with which we point out the contrasts between the world in which we live, and the one we will create once this one has been consigned to history.
On the one hand an outdoor prison guarded by police, judges, bureaucrats, and other collaborators, based on competition, social snitching, consumerism and individualism. On the other hand, the experiences of collective living experiences, of self-managed projects, of a future based on co-operation and mutual aid, where borders, uniforms, cops, judges, house raids, and DNA tests are nothing more than a distant memory.
FOR A VIBRANT AND DIVERSE RESISTANCE
FOR A PRACTICAL SOLIDARITY
AGAINST COPS, JUDGES, AND THEIR REPRESSION
FOR SOCIAL REVOLUTION
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