When the last known history transmission from Gianni Minoli dedicated to anarchist died, "Quando l’anarchia verrà (When anarchy will come)", RAI 2, March 17, 2010, I was seized by uncontrollable irritation, which I sent immediately to the patient's companion my life and spatially closest companions.
It seemed that the speaker wandered lost in the lunar landscape of a civilization buried, on which archaeologists work around it pale picks and chisels to dig up artifacts and cuneiform characters inscribed on stones.
Okay story, but it is possible that we anarchists are always those of Bresci of Sacco and Vanzetti, the Spanish Civil War? It is possible that, beyond the Piazza Fontana, of which we were sacrificial victims, was never discussed what were the seventies and eighties of the twentieth century for the development of anarchist thought, apart from the slogans and declarations from the cold principle? It is possible that no one speaks of Failla, the Marzocchi, of Mantovani, the Mazzucchelli, the Cerrito and of the many other comrades of the GIA and GAF who crossed and marked a crucial period of Italian and European history? Men who have lent their faces and their work to a movement that is growing exponentially and are committed, often to the physical wearing out, because some issues that anarchists debated for over a century would become the property of a generation in revolt. Men who, consciously libertarian, have witnessed the historic transition from second to third industrial revolution, men of a generation past that in bourgeois society nothing would be the same again.
If this is not history, then what's the story?
But, finally, it is possible that, again, when it comes to Italian anarchists, nobody goes down south of Carrara, as if Southern Italy had been, and is, a stranger to the emerging and evolving of libertarian thought ?
Through an individual labor
Irritation subsided by this talk of anarchists mainly in terms of memory, then, open minded, I realized that if reporters had turned their curiosity about this Federation and, more generally, of the libertarian movement, we would have, all us and not just the companies interviewed, a hard time answering. Why, apart from the confusing and unrealistic demands of the anti-globalization movement, and a few unheard anarchist thinkers have addressed the immense problems posed by the libertarians contemporary world. We were certainly good to denounce the involution and the authoritarian and xenophobic tendencies, and we have reported on time the radicalization of the conflict between labor and financial capital of the economy and the damage caused by the West (and beyond), but when the questions are moving from the complaint to the prospect, then we are forced to stutter. We are also involved in the difficulties we proceed towards the end of the tunnel.
I realize the difficulty of starting a conversation that we put in the proper guideline to achieve, gradually, some targets that are at least not contradictory of our view of the world and the demands of freedom, equality, solidarity and partnership that are the foundation of our thought. But we must realize that the deep discomfort that characterizes the present time can only slow fideistic not providing guidance, not ideology, which can make targeted ruptures with the existing. And, in my opinion, the first step required for this route is aware of the claim and irreducible uniqueness of the individual, against the practice of the global society of fragmented in different roles, all consistent with the logic of domination, which forced the daily modern man to separate the layers of his being functional constraint objective, the purpose of the system of exploitation and at the same time, drastically reduce the instances of his natural sociability.
The awareness of this split can win only through individual labor, can not convey with slogans and messages to be sent to the same extent that collective power has always forced by border control.
Respect to the uniqueness of the individual involved, meanwhile, a great revolution in the logic and purpose of production resources for survival must say that the time and effort of producing material goods and services are always commensurate with the power of each component of the community not to distract from the complexity of its social functions. And, on the other hand, also the recipient of a mode of production that has this logic should make it compatible, in its demand for consumption, the supply is derived from this production logic.
It means, essentially, that we must constantly perform, individually, less strict selection in adhering to the stresses that come from one mode to produce an end in itself, regardless of the real needs of end users.
Coming out
Let's take a trivial example but, in my view, significant. On several occasions, our governments have promoted incentives for the scrapping of old cars. Now, if the various measures were designed to remove polluting vehicles from our roads, of old design and high consumption, everything would be fine. The fact is that, in reality, these actions are always taken to settle the blance sheets in the red of the main industries, so they end up promoting the acceleration of parts of the system of consumerism, which reduces the artificial acceleration cycle life of the cars on the street. It is as if, to satisfy our need for fruit, each time we eat only half of an orange, a pear or an apple, throwing the other half in the trash. Destruction of resources, in short, that cry out for revenge if we were not all plunged into the vortex of an indiscriminate consumption.
If it is undisputed that the real revolution must take place in the first instance within each of us, the way ahead of me seems to be to understand the full meaning of our actions and not make them at odds with our goals. I stress the word on this because even complete re-appropriation of the social dimension of the individual is an arduous process, full of obstacles in a society that, in fact, proceeds in the opposite direction.
If everything we've written so far is acceptable in general terms, then we have only one way forward: we need to come forward, we must open our locations to public debates that deal with these issues with the participation of intellectuals and technicians with whom, even if not anarchists, we share the discomfort of living in a gray season seemingly unstoppable decline.
anno
40 n. 357
Antonio Cardella