From Organisation communiste libertaire
August 6, 2023
About the RIA of 2023, but not only...
During the anti-authoritarian meetings held in Saint-Imier from July 19 to 23, the stand and the militants of the Anarchist Federation were physically attacked by people arrogating to themselves the right to decide which writings had their place in a anarchist book fair and which were to undergo a burning.
The Anarchist Federation issued the following statement:
WILL THE CRADLE OF ANARCHISM BECOME ITS TOMB?
The press table held by the activists of the Francophone Anarchist Federation in the Book Fair of the International Anti-Authoritarian Meetings of Saint-Imier 2023 suffered several attacks (books stolen, torn, soiled, burned, intimidation, physical attack, etc.).
These acts are contradictory with the fundamental principles of anarchism:
⁃ Freedom of expression;
⁃ The fight against religion, all religions, and theocratic powers;
⁃ Solidarity.
They are dangerous because they establish a thought police echoing the worst regimes we are fighting.
Against obscurantism and intolerance, let us mobilize libertarian forces!
The Libertarian Communist Organization once again condemns these actions and affirms its full solidarity with the comrades of the FA.
This new attack is only the continuation of a long series.
Some examples :
- Already in 2012 in Saint-Imier, vegans attacked very "virilely" a stand that dared to offer sausages. Others intended to impose on everyone the clothes in which it was correct to wear.
- In 2014 a publisher, invited to the libertarian book fair in Lyon, was attacked with rage by people from the CGA for having published an author who displeased them. A conference on the theme “Resistance-Sexuality-Nationality in Ravensbrück” at the LGBT center in Paris was canceled following threats linked to the speaker’s critical positions vis-à-vis surrogacy.
- In 2016 a debate based on the text "So far everything is fine" as part of an evening entitled " Opposing to racialism: discussion " in Marseille at the local Mille bâbords was interrupted by a group of people violently bursting into room in order to prevent the debate, notably by shouting "The discussion will not take place". Results: trampled books and magazines, torn posters, overturned tables, blows and threats, use of gas, broken window...
- In 2019, in an activist local in Poitiers, individuals removed and burned brochures deemed transphobic, then tagged the home of a feminist activist who came to present her book criticizing postmodernism.
- Last July 15, the CNT of Barcelona which invited the association “Feminists of Catalonia” for a debate whose title was “Why so many girls do not want to become women? , saw his local tagged the night before with a message that read “transphobia is fascism” .
- At the Balkan Anarchist Book Fair , from July 6 to 9 in Ljubljana, people tried to cancel a discussion around the latest social movements in France , moderated by members of the Parisian anarchist library Les Fleurs Arctiques by covering them with insults, calling them aggressors and intimidating anyone who persisted in wanting to attend the debate.
- Finally, representatives of the Italian Anarchist Federation report that in Saint-Imier again, in 2023, during a workshop entitled "Anarchists at war" , the voices expressing a different position from the organizers of the workshop were censored, threatened , insulted.
Whether it is to ban Renaud Garcia, René Berthier, Alexis Escudero, Marie Jo Bonnet, Hamid Zanaz or such and such a group, the method is always the same: to adorn oneself with the title of libertarian to better refuse it to others by dressing them of all kinds of "phobes " and "fascists". Which is reminiscent of the finest hours of the French Stalinists who molested, threatened, forbade expression, and discredited all those who bothered them. We remind you that proposing a book is not an allegiance to its content but an incitement to debate. These “post-anarchist neo-radicals” do not want any debate who consider that the potential reader is in their image, incapable of thinking for themselves.
In 2014 following the aforementioned attack in Lyon, the text Against censorship and intimidation in spaces of libertarian expression was signed by dozens of publishers and authors. This passage strikes us as particularly topical.“We affirm our desire to no longer tolerate, on the pretext that they emanate from people from “our environment”, authoritarian behavior borrowed from the worst Stalinist tradition. Anyone who uses verbal and a fortiori physical violence in these circumstances cannot expect to be treated as a comrade and must be expelled unceremoniously from the spaces for discussion and exchange. We call on the organizers of libertarian fairs and meetings to take a clear position on this point so that these places once again become real spaces for meetings and debates. So that our participation no longer appears as a guarantee given to the muscular intrusions of the auxiliaries of the thought police. »
Organisation communiste libertaire
August 2023
Against censorship and intimidation in spaces of libertarian expression
(December 2014)
Preventing debates from taking place in “libertarian” spaces by upstream threats or untimely interruptions (screams, blows and death threats), spreading false accusations, practicing amalgamation and anathema, flooding with abusive comments "libertarian" sites that dare to give a voice to blacklisted authors, such are the behaviors that we witness more and more frequently on the part of new censors awarding themselves the libertarian label that they refuse to others.
Playing with remarkable efficiency on the feeling of guilt of publishers, booksellers, site or magazine organizers and event organizers who are more afraid than anything of being awarded "phobe" qualifiers, these censors most often succeed in purposes. To preserve an illusory unity of the environment, many of us prefer, in fact, to avoid questions that annoy.
These authoritarian practices remind us of the actions of the French Stalinists who molested, threatened, forbade expression, and discredited all those who, speaking from a leftist point of view, dared to denounce the dark side of the Soviet Union. Panaït Istrati, Victor Serge, and many others have had bitter experience of this.
The violent destruction of a meat meal by certain fundamentalist “vegans” during the libertarian days of Saint-Imier in August 2012 is a symptom of this new state of mind. More recently, in November 2014, Alexis Escudero author of The Artificial Reproduction of Humans and his publishers (Le Monde à l'envers) invited to debate at the libertarian book fair in Lyon were violently attacked, an event that echoes the cancellation of a conference by Marie-Jo Bonnet on the theme “Resistance-Sexuality-Nationality in Ravensbrück” scheduled for December 9, 2014 at the LGBT center in Paris due to threats related to her positions against surrogacy.
Faced with these recent events, we feel we can no longer continue to remain silent in the face of those who claim to dictate to us what we should eat, drink, read or think. We affirm our desire to no longer tolerate, on the pretext that they emanate from people from "our background", authoritarian behavior borrowed from the worst Stalinist tradition. Anyone who uses verbal and a fortiori physical violence in these circumstances cannot expect to be treated as a comrade and must be expelled unceremoniously from the spaces for discussion and exchange. We call on the organizers of libertarian fairs and meetings to take a clear position on this point so that these places once again become real spaces for meetings and debates.
Have signed :
Acracie Editions; Editions Le Coquelicot; Editions de la Pigne; Wheel Editions; Editions Rue des Cascades: Editions Le Monde à l'envers; Libertarian Editions; Common Places Collective; Editions The Step aside; monthly Alternating current. Gérard Amate (author); Jacques Baujard (Quilombo bookstore); Xavier Beckaert (author of Anarchism. Violence, Non-violence, editions of the Libertarian World); Pascal Bedos (website @narlivres); Coming Brisset; Marie-Claire Calmus (Columnist for the magazine l'Emancipation and author of the Chroniques de la Flèche d'Or); Jutta Bruch; Éric B Coulaud (creator and moderator of the Éphéméride anarchiste site); Eduardo Colombo (member of the editorial board of Réfractions); Christian Calvi; Loïc Debray (co-author of RAF-Red Army Faction, L'Échappée); Jean-Marc Delpech (author of Alexandre Jacob, the honest burglar, Libertarian creation workshop); Jean Claude Driant (member of the association and CRAS editions); Jean-Pierre Duteuil (author of May 68 a political movement Acratie); Felip Equiy (libertarian activist); Jean-Pierre Garnier; Daniel Guerrier (Spartacus Editions); C. Gzavier (co-author with JW of La temptation insurrectionniste (Acratie 2012); Annie Gouilloux (translator of Lewis Mumford for La Roue and La Lenteur editions); François Heintz; Jean-Michel Kay (Spartacus editions) ; Jean-Michel Lebas; Jean-Pierre Lecercle (Place d'Armes editions); Alain Léger (bookseller and publisher); Hugues Lenoir (Groupe commune de Paris-FA, contributor to the Biographical Dictionary of the French-speaking libertarian movement); Bernard Marinone (CNT Energy); Philippe Pelletier (Makhno-FA group); Serge Quadruppani; Marie-Christine Rojas Guerra (Union Chronicles on Libertarian Radio); Gilbert Roth (CIRA Limousin); Anne Steiner (author of Les En-dehors, L'Échappée 2008, contributor to the Biographical Dictionary of the French-speaking libertarian movement); Christophe Soulié (author of Freedom on Words at Analis); Azucena Rubio (libertarian activist); Annick Stevens (Member of the Editorial Board of Refractions); Pierre Thiesset (Le Pas de Côté editions); Catherine Thumann (independent press associate); Marc Tomsin (Rue des Cascades); Matias Velazquez (member of CIRA Marseille and CIRA Limousin); Jacques Wajnsztejn (author of Relations with nature, sex, gender and capitalism. (Acracie 2014) and member of the editorial board of the journal Temps critiques)
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