from vivalaanarquia, translated by war on society:
1st of June: I found out about it this morning. It was as if a loved one, a friend, a brother or sister had passed. My chest weighed heavy upon me, a lump stuck in my throat and a desperation to know more details hovered over me. It is nothing uncommon for this to happen to me, because although I have not met you, I have never had dealings with you or ever imagined that you exist, I feel as though I have had a very strong bond with you. The first that I learn is that the explosion had wounded your body and your flesh flew through the skies contaminated by this megamachine of steel and concrete. The street was splattered in your blood, red and thick, that blood that burned to recover the wild. The kilo of black powder ignited your clothes and your skin confused itself with the fire, your eyes were instantly reaped, and what surprised you was that you withstood all of that; when the paramedics arrived you were still conscious, you preferred the pain that you know that such an action brings with it, rather than the easy hedonism of civilization. That shock wave that many fragile bodies could not have stood, your body resisted. I am told that they call you tortuga [turtle]; why? I don’t know, perhaps because you have a shell so strong that not even the strongest blow can break? I don’t know. What I know is that what happened to you pains me and weighs on me; if it had happened to a Marxist guerrilla during a political-military action or one of the European hooligans who place bombs in the territories of the opposing sports teams, it would not have interested me in the least, but it was you, one of mine, an affinity*, a complete unknown but one who bet on sabotage against the gears of this monstrous machine, a warrior for the Earth, a crazy like me and like my close circle of affinities, an informal, an insurgent, and above all an individual. You rejected technology, you confronted this imposed reality as best you knew how, you decided to risk losing everything, absolutely everything, you did not pay heed to the false accusations of those who hide themselves always under an empty slogan without turning their face to the real problem. You transcended in your thoughts, you did not remain in the typical criticism of the family, the state, religion and capital, you discerned the true problem: civilization and the techno-industrial system, in sum, the complete system of domination.
Now you are alive but unconscious; a machine regulates your pulse, which you surely would not have ever wanted: to depend on a fucking machine in order to live. The news is filled with lurid statements about your accident, photographs were broadcast of your worn-out body, of your eyes that appeared to be crying blood, many were happy, society cursed you, others cried or held back tears, the religious prayed for you to stay alive, but, I ask, for what? With the repercussions that the wounds had on your body, it is better that you return to the Earth. I do not desire that you recover, that you leave the hospital, because although it is hard to hear and many will criticize me, it is what I feel, what I most desire and long for is that you return to the Earth, that you feed it with your body, that you nurture it and that you fulfill the function of the natural circle of life in which you surely also believed. By any means, they can never uproot the memory of your smile from those close to you. What could you expect if you “recover”? Apart from the physical pain, the other pain of seeing your family destroyed, knowing that your friends are fugitives, you can expect more torture by the police, interrogations, judicial demands and a grand etcetera, because although I know well that one day you will bring all this to mind, it is sure that you will not want to see nor feel it now. The consequences are these and you placed them against you, that last night when you carried in that bag the explosive, you took the consequences of your actions to a very high degree, that surely many would repent. When you steered to that bank, perhaps tranquil, reservedly, or nervously, you could have been thinking of a thousand things or of none, concentrating on leaving the explosive and fleeing the scene. The decision was made, the electrical system failed and now I write to you Luciano; I know that you are not going to read it and I hope that you do not, since the finality of this letter is not to sign with a “may you recover,” this is to affirm your position, to remind us among ourselves that we are those who have marked the difference, we have made history with the path that we ourselves marked.
And so like the turtles that live hundreds of years, your memory will live for ever, consider it done…
Much strength to Luciano’s affinities, from Mexico.
Anonimx
* In English, the word “affinity” is not used to refer to a person, only to a relationship–something one has but not something one can be–nevertheless, we use it here to indicate a person, as it is in Spanish, because we can conceive of no other translation of the Spanish term as used in this context in which the meaning would be conveyed (“friend” is too casual, “comrade” too formal, “family” or “kin” are misleading, “person of affinity” is awkward) – transl.
