antimilitarism

From indignation to revolution: the anarchic perspective
by Pippo Gurrieri

“Times of war. From 11 September to the present day” is the title of the conference organized by the Anarchist Federation of Sicily in Palermo on 10 September, at the Hall of Valdese. This is the text of Pippo Gurrieri, Ragusan anarchist, editor of the monthly “Sicilia libertarian”.

In the talk that opened this conference, Salvo Vaccaro analyzed the Maghreb addressed, stressing its predominantly political, that is, contrary to what has occurred so far, and what one might have expected, pushing the masses, mainly youth , to rise up and rebel, was neither hunger - the problem of daily sustenance, namely poverty - nor was religion, Islamist pressure. This was a riot for the dignity, who placed the request in the center of freedom, it was political revolts. It occurs to me how this theme of human dignity here in Italy, and especially in the South, continues to remain secondary, irrelevant; the pot here, although it has long since reached the correct pressure, does not burst, and the task of revolutionaries is to identify reasons that hinder the social explosion, then set its full realization in the sign of a general objection to the system for real change. It has been said of the great role that have played the media and internet in particular, in the coordination and communication that has encouraged the development of slogans and accompanied the riots in the Arab world. Perhaps a reflection on the role that must be made are of the same tools in our society. Apart from certain minority sectors that they serve well to promote initiatives in the fight, I see that in our part of the masses of young people using the internet as a substitute or facebook relations, as a place of their release, as a short alienating. Maybe in a few years in North Africa it will use the same, who knows. Meanwhile, now they have served to raise his head. Before the outbreak of the Arab riots, he knew that in Egypt, for example, had taken a great persuasive power some Islamic televangelists, who, in true American style, were able to capture millions of viewers with their religious sermons, all of which are openly pro-government, inciting resignation and obedience. If a few months after the Egyptian society has managed to rebel in a way that we know, we must assume that it is successful, at least in part, to shake off even the religious influences, and this is taking a more deeply political (and secular) the events. While we were traveling to Palermo, we phoned a fellow Chilean exile for years in Italy, and knew that they went to an initiative on September 11, we asked: what? In fact, we remember that there is September 11 in Chile, the Pinochet coup, not to be obscured on the other we are here today. Francesco Lo Cascio questioned in his speech that addresses the contradictions unionism-war jobs, environmental / toxic-work, defending the work, and I do not know if there is a syndicate based in the factories of arms, I know for a fact that a fracture Authentic occurred several years ago between different forms of trade unionism based on membership of the security guards, and this I believe was an element of clarity. I can say to be directly involved, who for many years the platforms of general strikes always contain points against military spending, and military missions against anti-war. Certainly, the contradiction Work / pollution often occurs, but the union base, and the Cub, of which I am part, has always led fierce battles against the toxicity of certain productions, fighting for the conversion and the environment. A union movement with clear ideas on these points, it is a good traveling companion of the antiwar and anti-war movements.

The crisis as alibi

Since 11 September 2001, to be more precise, since 2003, the theme of war has lost its centrality to Western peoples and movements of these countries, has ceased to be a priority. The causes of this change in strategic, cultural, psychological, are different. A in the habituation can be traced to the wars: virtually the last ten years there has been no period without wars, have been ten long years of one war fought on several fronts. This movement has gradually switched off before they are spent to prevent intervention in Iraq or Afghanistan, remember the thousands of peace flags hanging from balconies everywhere? Let's say that most of the protagonists of that season of struggle was struck by a sense of helplessness and resignation. This discourse on the sense of helplessness took it out for the first time Franco Leggio in Comiso, at the end of 1983, after construction began on the construction of the missile base. We went outside with various anarchist pamphlets and newspapers which did appeal to overcome the sense of helplessness that had taken over the movement and the population itself, producing fatalism and resignation. History repeats itself. Returning to the present, since these movements were composed in a substantial and militant elements of the institutional left as "extreme", has influenced the decline of the mobilizations also the policy of those parties who voted for military missions abroad, barter, to time of the last Prodi government, with the seats governmental decisions that have baffled the mass of voters and members of the left, making away from the commitment. Certainly a big part is having the current economic crisis, which has shifted the main political focus on economic issues, income, employment, forcing millions of workers and not to worry about their daily lives, and see, if anything, more first, the armed forces, as employment opportunity. The crisis has served as an alibi to the warlords and powerful to distract people from their military enterprises and their plunder of the resources of the countries attacked. Here we can record one of our greatest problems: not being able to connect the economic crisis, and then the tears and blood all government operations, the state of permanent war, in which we invest 12 million euro in one F35, or makes us spend 3,600 euro per minute, for years, in military missions. And so, while the "pacifist" people, anti-militarist, anti-war, lowered their guard, increased the militaristic propaganda initiatives, from funerals to "heroes" killed in combat missions, and its patriotic rhetoric, the military presence in schools and in society, the increase of perceived media pressure to act as the wars in the "right", or even make it invisible to the most tragic and destructive. But also continuously raised the militarization of the territory, from Vicenza in Sigonella, up to Niscemi, with the construction of MUOS, one of the central control of NATO's global communications. And so, when it began military action in Libya, with all the usual rhetoric and falsehoods humanitarian media, here we found ourselves faced with a sense of loss has advanced to such a liability rooted, with the result that the goal of freeing the people of Libya from the Gaddafi regime has been delegated to the government. Certainly, in recent years have fallen a few strongholds of warmongering deception, which the impartial role of the UN, with its resolutions that gave coverage to the war and provided delegation to NATO or other military coalitions, as well as come to drop the civilizing missions of cheating (just look at the Afghanistan today, fundamentalist, corrupt, or the oil contracts in Iraq, etc..). But this clarity did not produce a response more direct and hard, because they have established themselves in a manner inversely proportional to the resilience of the movement. So when the war came directly to our house, with the landing of tens of thousands of his victims on the run from the global South, this was seen as a humanitarian problem, a problem of rights to claim, an issue of racism and then as an internal problem for the reception, CIE detention and in CARA refugee camps, all important and sacrosanct, but isolated from the context from which they spring: the infamous decade of permanent war. Not to mention that, in turn, the war is not a problem in itself, but the expression of capitalism and domination of the world super-rich classes, and is thus connected to all the themes that characterize human exploitation.

Against the war lords

We are anti-military, because we dispute and reject the army even in time of “peace.” I believe that today even pacifism is an ambiguity to be overcome. Many peace activists there have been and are fellow travelers, but the ideology of peace has created confusion and bewilderment: peace, social peace, peace army. I think going noted the inadequacy of pacifism in dealing with the dynamics of today's conflicts in the world. At this stage it rebuilt a strong anti-militarist, since the “crisis”. The crisis is not a metaphysical entity, nor are those who represent the cause and which drive the destiny of the world from their financial chicanery. The crisis is a tool of the classes that dominate the world subjected to hold all the other classes, and especially those who may rebel, since the crisis is to bring out the very close links between the military strategies (war, weapons factories, trade arms, dictatorial regimes, the conquest of energy resources) and the massacre social classes but is becoming weaker, and these are the physical terminals of the crisis. To emphasize the importance of these “terminal” may challenge the standard solutions that governments take against them, because their crises are not paid and must also reject the great works (from TAV in Val Susa to the Strait Bridge) as a result of the same policies. But also fighting against the militarization of labor, through new rules that are imposed, both in terms of usability cancellation of trade union rights. We need to re-open levels of conflict against the warlords, from all the moments in which we celebrate militarism (schools, streets, etc..). But above all we must reposition ourselves in the territories contaminated by military bases, here we have three in particular those currently in the foreground in the strategies of war: Sigonella / Lentini, the center of expansion programs and shifting of troops from the US-Born Center-North Europe and the operational base of the Predator unmanned aircraft used experimentally in Libya with thousands and thousands of hours of flight, with direct and indirect bombardment (guidance of missiles launched from other aircraft); MUOS / Niscemi, that after the consent given by Governor Lombardo to the construction of the powerful radar station-satellite, would take off at any moment; Trapani airport, and base of the Western coalition fighter-bombers in the war in Libya, but also civil airport is experiencing rapid growth, sacrificed to the demands of war of aggression to grab the oil resources. In these places, and also in all other known, plan medium and long term interventions trying to build popular grassroots committees, structures of resistance, direct action that actually hinder the process of militarization and war plans. The example of Comiso, with all the work done on the ground, even after thirty years, can teach us something.

Pippo Gurrieri