From Dark Nights - Italy
original title: "Italy: Anna Beniamino – Contribution from Rebibbia prison ahead of the national assembly on October 11 in Rome, in solidarity with Alfredo Cospito, against 41 bis"
Anna’s scattered notes as a contribution to the October 11 assembly in Rome against 41bis for Alfredo
There is no shortage of analysis of the authoritarian turn currently underway, a real turn, albeit perceived in these parts as a low-intensity phenomenon, amid the cynicism of the powerful and the indifference of their subjects, sedated by the bread and circuses of the digital age.
The ‘Cospito case’ has been and continues to be one aspect of this shift: Alfredo has been held hostage, under 41bis, as a warning of this repressive crackdown, but it is not an extreme case, a distortion of the system. Rather, it is a tangible sign of the lowering of the threshold of punishability for political and social opposition and the consolidation of preventive repression strategies, from the tabula rasa on active components to the outright annihilation of speech and the silencing of critical thought.
Analyses of the repressive context and of whether or not to focus on the discourse (41bis – Alfredo in 41bis – anti-anarchist repression – repression simply) are not uniform, I believe, but hopefully converge on the need to oppose it, a need that is non-negotiable and cannot be misunderstood as a mere remnant of indignation at a legal distortion.
“Necessity” in the sense that we must maintain awareness, as a manifestation of vitality and planning, that the struggle is an existential dimension, not a ritual deadline on micro or macro issues. Whether it concerns specific and limited issues, such as a campaign to show solidarity with a single comrade or a situation under repressive attack, or macro issues such as the current state of widespread war, the genocide of a people, or the technological restructuring of forms of exploitation of man by man and of nature, we must first of all be aware that this is not a matter of external, superficial adherence, but of an intimate reason for struggle.
Having made this “light” introduction…
Although the authoritarian shift in Italy is being led by a handful of showmen controlled by the interests of global capitalism, such as the current holders of government positions, it is a fact that they are succeeding in carrying out a concerted effort to reduce the scope for protest, tightening prison and legislative conditions in the name of security and the specter of the democratic stability of institutions. Of course, this is not only the result of the new actors on the parliamentary stage; it was already well underway in the 1980s, with repressive strategies launched against the revolutionary component, from which much has been taken in rhetorical and propagandistic form, more indigestible than any reheated dish (if before the “bad teachers” were Toni Negri, now they are mathematicians such as, mind you, not Theodore Kaczynski but… Piergiorgio Odifreddi, to give a small example from recent days). And those who are not obtusely sedated by the institutional narrative, on either side, should grasp the meaning of certain continuities, where the only function is subservience to domination, to capital.
It is no coincidence that, amid this deluge of propaganda and television talk show rhetoric, the battle cries of any regime remain unchanged: in addition to the criminalization of public squares, anarchist press, grassroots trade unionists… even pacifist environmentalists, there is an obsessive search for enemies, political opponents, and terrorists to be destroyed.
If there is a lack of ready-to-use material, given that we live in relatively peaceful times in terms of social opposition, in addition to new or very new material (complete with the criminalization of non-conformist immigrants and keyboard warriors turned into dangerous Islamists), old or very old material is dusted off or kept warm, sought after by entire countries and continents or walled up alive for half a century. Counterbalancing the inconsistency of the initiatives of struggle and solidarity is the constancy and inevitability of the state moloch. It is quite significant that the long repressive memory is counterbalanced by a revolutionary amnesia (to use the definition of some comrades in reference to the German movement grappling with a repressive backlash that culminated in the arrest of Daniela Klette) of everything that has been a heritage of struggle and critical thinking.
Amnesia is not random but is one of the effects of a strategy of tabula rasa on the defeated enemy. “Carthago delenda est” [DN: ‘Carthage must be destroyed’ meaning ‘It must be destroyed’] and let’s throw salt on its ruins. Today’s tyrants prefer luxury resorts built on human bone meal and artificial intelligence that trains young Palestinians to be happy waiters or odalisques [DN: harem slave], but it is a model applied at both the micro and macroscopic levels. It is precisely this feeling of tabula rasa that leads to having to rebuild from scratch every time and in every place, struggling in increasingly restricted and claustrophobic communication bubbles, illusory comfort zones among like-minded people who comment and criticize the moves of others like spectators at the edge of the ring… rather than feeling part of a movement in struggle.
And here we come to another sore point, the “movement” which, by definition, should be something bubbling with energy, discussion, and planning, yet in many quarters it is one of those terms used almost with embarrassment or declined in the plural as if to give uniformity to individual experiences distant in place, time, and intent, “the movements.”
Yet it is a fact that there are forms of action and resistance, comrades who give generously of themselves, sometimes with remarkable inventiveness and effectiveness.
It is a fact that, focusing on the anti-authoritarian area, there has been an analytical awakening, a progressive liberation from some of the shackles and snares of victimhood and apathy that have engulfed libertarian discourse for too many years, returning to value the purest essence of revolutionary anarchism and its tools.
But on the one hand, we must be careful not to get bogged down in a discussion of the need to act in almost philosophical terms, losing touch with the situation and the ability to communicate in contexts that are not just limited.
The issue of movement aphasia (and the monologues and protagonists/protagonism that counterbalance it, if there is no training in meeting and discussion) is compounded by the broader problem of communication, the problem of understanding what references one wants to have and what discourses are possible. The flexibility to understand what times and places make sense.
In the case of the past mobilization, one of the problems was precisely the inability to ‘capitalize’ in the long term on what was a moment of visibility obtained through an unprecedented combination of factors (which, in the opinion of the author, was in itself a value: the intertwining of practices without debasing the underlying discourse and around a refractory comrade who, despite media attempts, was not spectacularly canceled). The mobilization did not yield as much as it could have in terms of increasing the critical awareness of those who had approached (or reapproached) it, but it nevertheless remained alive and clean. Without victimization and without wheeling and dealing with the small parties of the parliamentary left, without begging for visibility but taking it. Now, three years later, we are left with an issue that is still open in terms of repression (both for Alfredo and for the comrades involved in the mobilization), and the first question, the most simplistic but clearest one, is: is it still worth it?
Is it believed that the gravity of the authoritarian shift currently underway and the need to oppose it (not only “Alfredo-41,” but the world we live in and endure) are more or less important than the small areas of comfort or counterculture that are created?
Fearing today that a meeting point is a political washing machine is a sign that we are no longer trained to discuss face to face, too accustomed to delegating to the keyboard (a lot) and to newspapers (less and less). Not that the web and newspapers are useless, but they should be a starting point, not a destination. Otherwise, we discuss and argue with ghosts, with the image we have of the other person, not with the other person themselves.
It is rather surreal that we fight against the censorship imposed on Alfredo with prison and perfected with 41bis, yet fail to seize the opportunity to effectively break the self-imposed aphasia and gagging. If we really aspire to break communication and sectarian bubbles, somewhere, in reality, we have to start reweaving the threads. We must first get to know our comrades (and enemies) in order to recognize them as such; affinities do not arise in the abstract.
If you can’t manage the discussion and defend your arguments in restricted circles, how and with whom can you do so? On the one hand, in the knowledge that overexposure and fast scrolling are the tactics of the media and those who control them, where sometimes overexposure linked to a substantial emptying of meaning is preferred to outright censorship. On the other hand, in the awareness and pride of knowing how to break the imposed narrative.
Although it is true that the magnetic attraction of the dying anarchist on hunger strike who challenges the powerful with his stubborn survival is now lacking… it is also true that, as things stand, part of the discourse is already on the table, the wall of silence on 41bis has been broken, the concept of Italian prisons as places where suicide and violence are the order of the day is also out in the open, and the evidence of a mendacious narrative is clear.
A discussion left unfinished can be resumed, and the reasons for doing so remain valid: never before has there been such a stark contrast between the reasons for the revolt and those of a government of operetta hierarchs, servants of every master, traffickers of arms and votes, liars and cowards… in recent years, anecdotes on the subject have proliferated. There is no need for macro-geopolitical analysis or dissertations on the strategies of postmodern capitalism. Any individual walking down the street with their eyes open to the world and a modicum of critical thinking should be able to assess which side integrity lies on and which side (to paraphrase something very old) barbarism lies on. The reasons are all on the table, it’s just a matter of understanding how…
Source: La Nemesi
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