Alfredo Maria Bonanno, ideologue of the anarcho-insurrectionists, has died

alfredo bonanno

From Domani (machine translation to English)

He has been arrested several times, but he has remained a point of reference for a certain intellectual world. He died in Trieste at the age of 86

His name will not mean much to the general public, but for part of the variegated anarchist world, Alfredo Maria Bonanno was much more than a point of reference. He died this morning, Wednesday 6 December, in Trieste, he was 86 years old: the news gradually spread among friends and companions, informed by his wife. The comrades themselves remember him today for his rigor in searching for original texts by anarchist theorists and for the logic pursued in the discussions.

His story is enormous in its own way, as much as his inexhaustible journalistic commitment that over the years has also brought him legal troubles: as when in 1972, for an article in the magazine "Sinistra libertaria" that incited insurrection, he was sentenced to two years.

Another year and a half took him for another controversial writing, La gioia armata, a 1977 review for the magazine "Anarchismo" of a small volume of the Vulcano editions entitled Colpo su colpo, which included a biography of the French anarchist Emile Henry, two of his letters, the account of the trial he underwent, an appendix with a letter by Errico Malatesta, tutelary deity of Italian anarchism.

Hitting in the pile

It was the same Henry who carried out a bomb attack in the Café Terminus at the Gare de St. Lazard in Paris, killing one person and injuring about twenty and for this he was guillotined at just 21 years old, on May 21, 1894. And Bonanno described a "young, cultured and intelligent" Henry, who "coldly made a decision that others had matured and understood, but did not realize": precisely the indiscriminate attack.

Henry who "attacks the bourgeoisie, not this or that representative of the state institution, this or that policeman, magistrate, executioner, torturer, spy or traitor, no: the whole bourgeoisie. He strikes in the heap, without discrimination. He carefully chooses one of the places that this class frequents, goes there with his infernal device, lights the fuse, throws the bomb and leaves."

And finally, in just three lines with a rare gift of synthesis: "Here. Striking in the crowd, today, so long after Henry's gesture, would not only be a valid gesture but would also be a theoretical contribution to the movement, once again, a qualitative leap."

The Political Testament

Bonanno was mocked by the anarchist world. Amedeo Bertolo, a point of reference for Milanese libertarians and others, wrote, for example, as follows: "We tried to laugh at him because we know the author and his unsatisfactory need to perform increasingly impressive rhodomontades, pour epater le bourgeois, or more likely, since these days it is difficult to impress the bourgeois with decidedly inflated verbal truculences, pour epater l'anarchiste. For years, after all, Alfredo Maria has been devoting himself to scourging the softened and bourgeois anarchist movement (excluding himself) with the modesty of a public prosecutor, the grace of a brawler and the naivety of an advertiser.

Bonanno, however, would never change his position, even getting noticed in 1978 for a curious publication: an author's forgery, attributed to Jean Paul Sartre (My Political Testament, obviously full of very violent passages against bourgeois society), which was also taken at face value by the press.

The Ideologue

Alfredo Bonanno

Over the years, after having worked first as a banker at the Banco di Sicilia (he was originally from Catania) and then even as an industrial manager, Bonanno gradually gained a very particular and progressively less isolated position in the libertarian galaxy.

To the point of finding himself, in the new millennium, as an "ideologue" of the anarcho-insurrectionists. All this, however, always passes through arrests and trials: for example, in 1989, when he was arrested for robbing a jewelry store in Bergamo, or seven years later, when the investigators indicated him as the leader of an armed gang, the Orai (Revolutionary Anarchist Insurrectionist Organization). Sentenced to 3 years and six months in the first instance, which became six on appeal, Bonanno was reported in 2009, for a further two-year sentence for complicity in robbery in Greece.

Returning to the "intellectual" front, one of his most surprising works was, in 2003, the publication of the long correspondence he had between 1998 and 2000 with Gianfranco Bertoli, the bomber of the massacre at the Police Headquarters, in whose anarchism Bonanno did not believe at the time.

But then he changed his mind: this is evidenced by the hundreds of letters that the two wrote to each other at the end of the millennium, a correspondence that only Bertoli's death interrupted. In addition to his wife Annalisa, an anarchist companion in the second half of his life, Alfredo Bonanno leaves a son with her. And that bears the same name.

There are 38 Comments

one of the last of the great 20th c. anarchists. encountering his work 20+ years ago was like a finding a bright new star in the sky. absolutely engaging and discursively tight. may his work continue to help lay this hellworld to waste.

a great loss of a serious badass. we were lucky to be alive and active at the same time as Bonnano.

REAL badasses go out in a blaze of glory like Vikings brah, Not lying down in a bed recieving medications from the medico-big pharma complex!

If that's how you truly feel why not go on a kamikaze attack and hurry to fire on the policeman right now? Go on do it and go out in a blaze of glory if that's really what you think? What a sad coward and pathetic excuse for an anarchist you are to insult a man who's life has done more for anarchy than you ever will on the day of his death. Its ableist machismo comments like these that are truly emblematic of what is wrong with the anarchist movement.

means the troll is joking...save your energy for the boog-wa fatcats, because they will be struck down more easily than alienated trolls...fallow Bonnano's example and rob someone tonight. Even if you get caught, it's still a nice story...but i guess it's best not to do it in some draconian country like the U.S.

Yeah, do it in a country where you don't get shot at when robbing a bank and you get spaghetti bolognase and a bottle of wine for dinner in prison if you surrendered without a struggle!

"draconian country like the U.S."
i hate the U.S. as much as anyone, but this type of statement beyond oversimplistic, i can think of at least 100 more "draconian countries" where you would be executed t the drop of a hat. not saying "go USA" at all, just that this type of rhetoric is stupid.

that many of the western european countries have lighter sentences for crimes the states in all these countries deem "serious". This is not to say the Italian cops aren't douschebags (Bonanno would of course point out how draconian the state there is much of the time). Of course, people in the U.S. get off easy (or don't get caught) all the time for committing heinous or very illegal offenses...but the american cops are brutal in terms of their willingness to kill and incarcerate a lot of the time. So you are correct in acknowledging it's not black and white.

Also silly, I was just joking around. Whether you rob someone or not is totally up to you...it will add an element of excitement to your day regardless though! A little bit too much excitement for me, I prefer the lifting of goodies from big corporate american stores, because they don't even try to stop you, honestly, if the items you steal are worth less than $20 most of the time.

In my research, how states punish criminals in every country depends on a complex range of factors. For example, middle eastern countries do try to observe sharia law sometimes, but the last time someone got their limbs amputated for stealing in saudi arabia was when a foreigner did it. Americans tend to think of the muslim monarchies as being particularly scary, but it really depends on the situation. I personally wouldn't fucking go there because I can't shut my fucking my mouth. I'm too used to the ultra-liberal american culture as it relates to flapping my trap. You can even talk about killing presidents here, and as long as you are doing it among people you trust, the chance of getting punished for that is pretty slim.

People in the US have been executed at the drop of a hat every fucking week in the US by the roihead cops that are trained to chase down and kill civilians.... where have you been? This isn't the '80s anymore, dude.

Gone up here. The George Floyd Incident was a chance to maybe do something about, but anarchists and leftists typically want to talk about race or colonialism.

There is no doubt that Bonanno had the courage of his anarchist convictions and lived his life in opposition to capitalism and the state. I honor him for that.

But it is worth remembering that bombing cafe's a la Emile Henry was likely to kill or injure waiters and other cafe' workers, as well as proletarian passers-by. Just as sending mail bombs to the rich is likely to blow up their secretaries or the mail deliverers. Ordinary working people are aware of this and are turned against anarchism by such tactics.

Leave it to UkWayne to shit on the memory of an anarchist who outclassed him by light years.
And automatic fail for using "whom" incorrectly.

"What do the victims matter if the gesture is beautiful?"— Laurent Tailhade after he lost an eye to the bomb Emile Henry placed at Cafe Terminus

Fuck you Wayne. Really says a lot about you to say this shit in a memorial piece

Fuck you Laurent Tailhade you masochist freak, after losing eye in beautiful bomb explosion!

how would he know its beautiful if it took out the eye that was facing it?

Hmm yes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. There is still another eye though.

"But who will think of the hypothetical inocent proletarians?" Thank you wayne for being the bastion of moral integrity.

I agree totally Wayne about these glorified psychopaths who call themselves anarchists. We individualists do not tolerate this vicious dextruction of innocence.

funny watching all these hardcore anarchist troll lemmings attack wayne just for him criticizing someone bombing a cafe, LOL. It shows that most anarchists ARE just cowards, I already miss Bonnano.

you think @news commenters are a representation of most anarchists?

but it confirms my feelings that they are, in real life, the anarchists i have seen and heard about near my area tend to be focused more on identity politics and "oppression" more than anything not quite so competition and resentment based...but I do admit that i don't have much expertise at all.

Lol, don't you realize that "coward" is an ethics based moral judgement of a person's character and has no place in anarchist spaces.

Way to call someone a hypocrite. WP, even though i think his "prole" advocacy is silly and antiquated, said "i respect bonnano but i dont like the bombing." Then, the toilet trolls attack him in unison for dissing bonnano. I tried to insult them based on their lack of reading comprehension, but somehow the moderators didn't like and therefore my less moral insult got removed ;-)

I do think the "bastion of moral integrity" sarcistic insult was more in line with how i feel about WP, and i commend that brave anon for having the guts to respond to a post the way it is.

Bomber the anons are defending was a moralist. To kill someone because they are bourgoiesie means killing someone a percieved bad thing they did to the proletariat...wayne's haters are more like him than they realize.

Fuck you Wayne. Alfredo was 1000-times the anarchist you ever pretended to be.
Wayne, you're going to be at an event and get punched in the face and you'll know why.
And a huge fuck you to the moderators for their bullshit about not being assholes on memorial articles. I guess it doesn't apply to pets like Wayne who fluff their egos by always returning.

I will be your bodyguard at any event Wayne, free and voluntarily in the anarchist style. I'm a black belt in Tae Kwon Do, you have nothing to fear!

And just like with Dr Henry K... it's always the biggest assholes that'll live to be super-old so they can keep being annoyances to the world around.

Holy Proletarians bombing the crap of each other, Wayne.

And yes, Holy Proletarians also are doing shitloads of stupid, destructive, pollutive shit on a daily basis that isn't anywhere as extreme yet is still testifying that their lives aren't above the value of the Rich... but perhaps not the cops and CIA ASSets, tho.

...oh btw I forgot that cops and CIA agents are specialized Workers.

Love and respect from north america.

Found the tidbit about his correspondence with Bertoli interesting. I wonder if his story and politics are more complex than Wikipedia says.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milan_police_headquarters_bombing
“ The attacker was Gianfranco Bertoli (30 April 1933 – 17 December 2000), who self-identified as an anarchist was later identified to be a long time informant for the Italian military intelligence service, that he had long maintained links with various anti‐communist and neo‐fascist organizations linked to the Operation Gladio stay behind network as part of the strategy of tension.”

reading about him.

Honestly, I only know about him through his writing and somewhat performative actions related to that. Reading this, I feel like I can make better sense of his "revolutionary anarchism". I admire how seriously he took his ideas even though I definitely do not agree with them...for example, "attacking the bourgeoisie" is kind of over-rated. Of course, the obit here is talking about a different person who bombed the cafe, but I don't care much for such kinds of activities. To me it's a little strange that the author of this obituary is conflating these two people. I would have included more about Bonanno if I had written this.

Anyways, "Cananero " is an excellent work of literature by him IMO, or at least that's how I remember it. Petty shoplifting is a much better form of crime for the reasons stated in the article, but it is nice and inspirational to hear about someone who just doesn't care so much about getting caught, and Bonano has definetly been an influence for me. R.I.P Bonanno, sometimes I have thought about the condescending glares you would give me if I ever ran into you in Italy.

Which are the stated reasons for why "petty shoplifting is a much better form of crime"?
Are you talking about this article or a different one?
Thanks!

RIP brother!

Today, the longtime anarchist Alfredo Maria Bonanno has died. He lived quite an incredible life and was robbing stores even at the old age of 72, 14 years ago. He wrote "Armed Joy" which was ordered banned and all copies burned by a judge and imprisoned for two years. He was one of the best authors of the insurrectionary tendency and one of the most notable remaining 20th-century anarchists in terms of the clarity of his ideas and theoretical influence. Let his life serve as an inspiration to us all. I hope I also may be 86 and still taking names and kicking ass.
My condolences to his wife Annalisa and his son Alfredo. I know the man you lost means even more to you than to all of us in the anarchist galaxy who read and were enchanting by his writings.
Rest in power comrade. You were a real one. Long live the social war and fight for social revolution. Long live anarchy.

RIP Alfredo Maria Bonanno, Thank you for the immense inspiration your writing has had on my life.

Vendetta

RIP Aflredo Bonanno. On the morning of december 6th, on the 15th anniversary of the 2008 insurrection in Greece, the anarchist galaxy lost a giant. Perhaps a fitting date as it was in Greece that Bonanno first cut his teeth as an insurrectionary helping to fight against the Junta in the late 60's and early 70's. It is possible is role contributed to the strong insurrectionary tendency in Greece's modern anarchist movement that continues as one of the largest anarchist movements in the world today. His stature was such that it is hard to imagine the world without him. His writing and his example in action will likely remain relevant for decades to come.

since i posted on it, it's made up of several authors. So far I have come across "the obscure clarity of words", by bonnano, and it's not very clear, but it is thought provoking and enjoyable for me. It's not even really about anarchism or politics, but about the journey one goes through in the process of writing for an audience. I highly recommend Cananero, it's better than at least 90% of the content I regularly see on here. The Bonnano has a very challenging and epigrammatic quality, it was these kinds of books from LBC that got me enthralled in anarchist literature in my early/mid 20's, when before I didn't have any interest in things associated with anarchism. I wish I knew how to find a lot more works similar to Cananero and what Wolfi usually writes or associates himself with...but I think as type of it's own genre, it will become more rare with time. Not to say that we should bitch about how things are not like "the good old days" or whatever.

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