Posted: October 3rd, 2016 | Author: THI | Filed under: Broadsheets | Comments Off on Clermont: Revenge of the weeds: On attacks against schools
From La Bourrasque, an anarchist broadsheet of critique and agitation written in Clermont and the surrounding area. Issue 2, Juin-August 2016.
A little something for the back-to-school season…
Revenge of the Weeds
We still remember those nasty, horrible people who, in 2005, during the three weeks of rioting that rocked the banlieues (1), vandalized “their” schools. Groups of rebels smashed up this idea of schooling, blew apart the framework of social integration (2), set ablaze the whole democratic symbol of a national education. These images were seen around the world and many onlookers were deeply impacted by the scenes of civil war and the reactionary rhetoric of the journalist-cops. There had always been attacks against schools and they haven’t stopped since. Each year, we can count a good twenty of them that get ransacked. These revolts are less visible today than in 2005, but sometimes the ruckus still manages to reach us from the other side of the bars. If we were to really spend five minutes reflecting on what this institution represents, would we be so surprised to see it targeted by those who refuse to submit?
The school, with its perimeter wall, its yard, its cameras, and, coming soon, its metal detectors, is nothing but a reduced version of the prison. Its priorities — bow to authority, stay in your place, say thank you — must be fully internalized before stepping out into the real world. Discipline is strict and the child is brought into line using punishments or rewards. Education is a garden stake, straightening up the weedy plants they could grow into. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: September 21st, 2016 | Author: THI | Filed under: Broadsheets | 1 Comment »
From Seditions: an irregular anarchist journal the Besançon area. Issue 8, September 2016.
A summer of revolts
While the end of last year was marked by social problems that caused a bit of trouble for the powerful, the summer of 2016 brought fiery revolts against this world of misery and oppression. First and foremost, these took aim at those who most obviously carry of the violence of the powerful, namely the cops and the gendarmes [military-style police].
While some go off on vacation, others stay trapped in the prison world of the ghettos. On Tuesday July 19 in Beaumont-sur-Oise in Val-d’Oise, Adama Traore was killed by gendarmes while being arrested. To conceal his death by suffocation at the hands of the pigs, the state immediately began talking about “heart troubles … respiratory troubles … pulmonary infections” and so on. Every time some dies in custody, power puts on the same grim spectacle, with the complicity of the media. This time, Beaumont and Persan [two towns in Val-d’Oise] responded with several nights of revolt, during which many municipal and state buildings (police stations, libraries, garages for city vehicles) as well as capitalist infrastructure (gas stations, supermarkets…) went up in smoke or had their windows smashed.
These attacks against the institutions and infrastructure of this society are the proof that only by destroying this world will we find justice within it. To demand that “justice be done” is to insist that the state condemn a killer in uniform who is himself tasked with maintaining order, so basically asking power to condemn itself. It’s hoping for a kind of state justice that is and always has been in the service of the rich and powerful. Even if this murdering officer were to be found guilty of voluntary homicide, the exploitation and oppression imposed by this system would continue just the same. Read the rest of this entry »