All states are murder cults.
Two of the worst massacres committed in Paris since World War II:
17 October 1961. French police attack a demonstration of Algerian immigrants and kill perhaps 200 (the numbers have never been confirmed), dozens are beaten, thrown off bridges and drowned in the Seine, others shot by impromptu firing squads in the police station courtyards.
13 November 2015. A gang of ISIS/Daesh kamikazes, mainly children of North African immigrants, shoot dead and blow up at least 129 people in concert halls, restaurants and bars in central Paris.
In Paris, the tension of social war is thick in the air. In 2005, police killed yet another two teenagers and sparked an uprising lasting 20 nights. Now every Bastille Day and New Year the suburbs catch fire again, hundreds of cars are burnt by the youth, the dispossessed of the decaying French empire. This is where “Islamic State” recruits, in the ghettos and in the prisons. Like any army, they offer cash payments, family benefits, and social status, but also brotherhood, belonging, meaning, an ounce of power against the powerful, and a way to get revenge.
A state, old or new, is an organised band of killers strong enough to assert its domination on a territory. To do so, it tries to win consent, “legitimacy”, deploying nationalist or religious myths, holy books, the theatre of elections, media, schools, and our habits of submission. And it uses violence and terror: bombs, wars, massacres, drone strikes, executions, prisons, police.
Now France and other European states are declaring war against Daesh in Syria (and allying with the biggest murderer of the lot, Bashar Al Assad). In London, as in Paris, we can expect an escalating condition of martial law in our cities, with increasing attacks on youth, migrants, and anyone who dissents. We will be pushed to choose sides: are we with democracy, or are we with Daesh?
We are with neither. Islamo-fascist or liberal, all states are mass murderers, enemies of life. We choose the side of life.
We are anarchists. Anarchy means people self-organising to live freely, without states or other gangs terrorising us. For most of history, humans lived without states. Just maybe we are intelligent enough animals to do so again, to find better ways to live than fear and domination. Over the last few hundred years, states have indoctrinated us into their death cults, training us to believe that we need their control and protection. This is a lie.
This is the moment to reject louder than ever all states and terror gangs. Once, anarchist ideas of freedom spread amongst the dispossessed in the slums of Paris, London and other cities, striking terror into the powerful. Now, in the space left by the death of revolutionary movements, fascist ideologies from ISIS/Daesh to neo-nazism have free rein, offering easy hate figures and fantasy solutions to real problems. All of which serves our democratic masters nicely.
We can’t cede to them the battleground of ideas. No hiding. In the streets, in our neighbourhoods, in the prisons, jobcentres, colleges and schools, we need to be active and unafraid, spreading ideas and methods of freedom, self-organisation, comradeship, solidarity and rebellion.
War on all the murder cults. No Gods, No Masters.
Anarchist Sante Caserio assassinates French president Sadi Carnot, image by Flavio Costantini