“…it is important to amplify in practice the concept of direct solidarity, in other words, we consider that we need to extend the unmanageable struggle of the hand of solidarity with our imprisoned comrades, to all the levels of the anti-systemic confrontation. The support to comrades who are persecuted or fugitive is a necessity that requires immediate attention.”
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from culmine, translated by war on society:
by Giuseppe Dondoglio Antonlini
A few weeks ago while “surfing” the Web I found a text written by the collective Noticias de la Rebelión as their way of responding to the strong critiques made by the anarchist space as a consequence of the infamous statements that they made about some some comrades, particularly against the compa Gustavo Rodríguez.* In reality, I prefer to “let pass” everything that appears in that text, the only question that concretely called my attention was the reference to the call that they made to “strengthening the IRF and the AF,” [the International Revolutionary Front and the Anarchist Federation – transl] but this last without including the essential (and clarifying) suffix “informal”; and all this in these days when some sectors of the so-called “libertarian movement” in Mexico continue convening for the reforming of the extinct Anarchist Federation of Mexico.
The Informal Anarchist Federation (FAI) is an antagonistic project that was born as a proposal for the coordination of the chaotic attack against the entirety of the established in a concrete way, coming from the Italian comrades, although in its first stage it extended to Spain. The FAI up to now has carried out not only decentralized sabotages, but also has internationally coordinated countless attacks directed against a common target in specific campaigns around timely issues–to cite one example, the campaign against FIES [the special maximum-security units of the prison system of the Spanish State designed to hold anarchists and other uncontrollables – transl].
Currently the cells that make up the FAI have extended beyond the Mediterranean region, not only to other areas in Europe but also to other parts of the world. In Russia, Mexico, Finland, Bolivia, Chile, Indonesia, UK; the cells and nuclei informally coordinated in the FAI have carried out actions responding to the international solidarity campaigns, as per the global action proposed in the three base points contained in the first communique of the Federation.
The proposal elaborated by the imprisoned comrades of war, members of the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire in Greece, arrived, contributing to a major focus in the direction in what our unmanageable solidarity aims at. The focus of this proposal is oriented from the informal anarchist praxis. It does not seek to establish (nor much less strengthen) any centralized and bureaucratic “Federation,” nor anything like that, much less does it pretend any control on the part of those who transmitted that proposal, which in a manner has been well-received by the comrades in affinity around the world.
The organic informal at the global level and the idea of coordination of clear chaotic conception, under which the International Revolutionary Front functions, is very far from the “line” of whatever classic Anarchist Federation, whether on the global or regional level, primarily because the IRF is an anarchist, free and totally autonomous coordination, without an office or bureaucratic center from which to transmit a “line” and dictate directives but rather limits itself to the coordination in the action that it directs against the structures of Power and against the individuals who are at the head of the State/Capital. As such, it never intends to form part of a “federated” organization that operates on a public level and centers its life in the quantitative growth of its “federated bodies.”
On this point, I think much still remains to be defined and even more to theorize on the part of anarchist practice. Likewise, it is important to amplify in practice the concept of direct solidarity, in other words, we consider that we need to extend the unmanageable struggle of the hand of solidarity with our imprisoned comrades, to all the levels of the anti-systemic confrontation. The support to comrades who are persecuted or fugitive is a necessity that requires immediate attention.
The Informal Anarchist Federation (FAI) is a coordination perfectly compatible with the International Revolutionary Front (IRF); these sibling groupings share principles and ends, through which they function harmonically and without the least interference. Nevertheless, affinity groups who do not share the acronyms or base principles of the FAI can freely claim themselves as part of the IRF since the “Front” is not a dependent arm of the FAI.
Nevertheless, the IRF, not being a specific or “formal” organization nor pretending to constitute itself as such, is incompatible with the ideas and the practice that nourish the “classic” Anarchist Federations, namely, those of bureaucratic tendency edified on the basis of the principles of “synthesis” and far from the Informal praxis. To strengthen the IRF does not necessarily mean to directly strengthen the project of the FAI, but to try to strengthen any Anarchist Federation alien to the informal practice, which is a fundamental part of the logic of the IRF (at the international level), is an opportunist aberration.
Therefore, it’s hard for me understand to what Anarchist Federation they reference in Noticias de la Rebelión that without being “Informal” intends to “strengthen” the IRF. The anarchist cells of action that claim the International Revolutionary Front do not revolve around any Anarchist Federation that is not based by principle on informal practice.
With these clarifications, I do not try to impose “lines,” much less do I intend to give as finished “something” that can change, not only because it isn’t static but also because it is in constant construction. With this I only want to introduce into discussion the sense of the informal anarchist coordination of which the IRF is part, that in reality has functioned very well, as well as the local FAI and the diverse cells that make it up by means of informal coordination.
Therefore, I consider that on the basis of these principles, when you claim the IRF and the Anarchist Federation, and speak of “strengthening them” it is logical to conclude that you speak of the “Informal” Anarchist Federation. Although the IRF does not contain the word “informal” in its acronyms of presentation, it remains clear to us in its texts that its organizing model is not hierarchical nor centralist, platformist or bureaucratic, but on the contrary is autonomous, free, congruent with the chaotic principles and an example in international solidarity and the global anarchist conspiracy against the system of domination. That is to say, definitively Informal.
Giuseppe Dondoglio Antonlini
