few words of freedom

A Few Words of “Freedom” Interview by CCF – Imprisoned Members Cell with Alfredo Cospito (2014) Alfredo Cospito, Conspiracy of Cells of Fire – 17 pgs via kindle version from anarchist library [https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/a-few-words-of-freedom]:

notes/quotes:

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This pact of mutual support in fact bypasses the assembly, its leaders, the specialists of speech and politics and the authoritarian mechanisms activated even in anarchist sphere when the assembly becomes a decision-making body.

A thread that binds anarchism of yesterday which practiced “propaganda of the deed”, offspring of the International Congress of London in 1881, and anarchism of today, informal, anti-organizational, nihilistic, anti-civilizational, antisocial.

Nicola and i, the only members of “Olga Cell”, don’t know in person the other brothers and sisters of FAI, knowing them would mean seeing them locked up within the four walls of a prison cell. We were convinced of the utility of FAI-FRI thanks to the words (communiqués) and the actions of the brothers and sisters who preceded us. Their words always confirmed by their actions, gave us the indispensable tenacity, without which any project is reduced, in the era of the virtual, to useless, sterile words in the wind.

We needed a compass to find our way, a tool to recognize and unmask those who have created an anarchist gym for verbalists, a filter to distinguish empty words from those that carry reality.

We found in this “new anarchy” , in its claims and the related revolutionary campaigns, the perspective of a real attack that amplifies our destructive potentialities, protects our autonomy as rebel and anarchist individuals and gives us the opportunity to collaborate, strike together, without knowing one another directly. No kind of coordination can be included in our planning.

“Coordination” necessarily requires knowledge, organization between the sisters and brothers of different cells. Such a coordination would kill the autonomy of each group or individual. The most “efficient” , prepared, courageous, charismatic group would inevitably prevail, reproducing the same deleterious mechanisms of the assembly, in the long run leaders, ideologists, charismatic “bosses” would rise again, it would be a step towards organization: the death of freedom itself.

Some might say that even in an affinity group, in a FAI cell a charismatic leader, a “boss” could hide.

In our case, however, damage would be limited as between cells there is no direct knowledge. Gangrene could not be extended.

Our *being anti-organizational preserves us from that risk. That is why we need to rely on “revolutionary campaigns” which exclude knowing groups and individuals directly, killing every glimmer of organization. Campaigns must never be confused with coordination, this is the informality, this is the essence, in my opinion, of our operating planning. It must be clear that **when I speak of an affinity group or action cell, I may refer to a single individual or a numerous affinity group.

*gershenfeld something else law ness

**the it is me and i’m never just me ness.. how many ness

We should not make an issue of numbers.

any form of m\a\p.. graeber violence/quantification law et al

3

Organization would restrict tremendously our perspectives, reversing the process from qualitative to quantitative.

*A thousand heads raging against power, cutting them all off is impossible. It is these very actions followed by words (communiqués) that allow us to exclude with certainty theorists, pure lovers of speech, giving us the chance to relate exclusively to those who live in the real world, getting their hands dirty, risking their own skin. These are the only words that really matter, the only words that allow us to grow, to evolve. Revolutionary campaigns are the **most efficient tool to cut, harm where it hurts the most. Giving us the ***opportunity to spread throughout the world like a virus, carrier of revolt and anarchy.

*but if raging against power.. already (still being) cut off.. because ie: **this is cancerous distraction.. keeping us from ***a legit global detox leap

5

When you start doing what could drive people on *your side instead of what you think is right, you do politics..t From the moment you impose limitations on yourself out of **fear of not being understood, you are, de facto, already a political entity, therefore you become part of the problem, one of the many cancers that infect our existence..t One should never measure his own words and actions just to ***become acceptable to people, to the crowd, otherwise there is great risk of being transformed by the very “intermediate” objective he wants to reach...t

oh my.. huge huge.. all the things

ie: *us & them ness.. coercion ness.. people telling other people what to do ness; **olivier wrong about you law et al; ***brown belonging law.. maté trump law.. et al

6

Often praising absurd free Republics, they take two steps forward, two backward, remaining actually still, yet always with a nice, pleasant company..t

wack-a-mole-ing ness of part\ial ness and so cancerous distractions

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The democratic citizen, as a good servant, fears and respects authority, begs for its attention, *strengthens the chains that bind his wrists. Fact remains that **responsibilities are not the same, a gradation exists.

*any form of democratic admin strengthens the chains.. any form of m\a\p

**perhaps ‘responsibility‘ ness not same via words/measures.. but if still talking responsibility ness and all the red flags.. still perpetuating same song

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[following this oi from p 7: I do not want to garner support, but to reinforce through violent action the bonds of true solidarity with my brothers and sisters..fellow travelers who share my need to attack without hesitation, without knowing each other, in our differences we are one, a clenched fist, a hook in the stomach of “society”: A plan that combines the mind with the feeling, the ice of strategy with the fire of praxis, here with now, the tension with the duration, with the direct aim of destroying the social apparatus and the liberation of our lives. (CCF- Let’s become dangerous).]

cancerous distractions.. totally perpetuating us & them ness..

thurman interconnectedness law: when you understand interconnectedness it makes you more afraid of hating than of dying – Robert Thurman 

During struggle, new ideas have blossomed like seeds in the wind, carried away by the fire of praxis, inspirations, strategies previously inconceivable were born. In a modernity where terms such as society and authority reveal their full synonymity, i feel the need for new meanings, new words that can transmit my constant tendency towards new anarchy.

To use new words because the old ones are holding me tight. New meanings for a completely different planning. The same words at different latitudes may represent very different concepts. The so-called “informal organization”, at least as it was theorised between the late 70’s and the early 80’s in Italy, is way far from the informality of FAI-FRI.

same song as long as still planning, fighting, wording, et al

According to italian insurrectionalists, informal organization should mainly be based in the *tool of the assembly and the creation of base committees and self-managed federations. Where anarchists as a true minority that acts, after having contributed to their creation through networks, contacts, affinity groups, should have to try and guide the “real movement” towards **insurrectional solutions. The battlefield of this insurrectional strategy: the “intermediate struggle”.

*yeah.. that.. tech as nonjudgmental expo labeling.. sans any form of **that

Nothing could be further from the antisocial, anti-organizational, nihilistic, purely anarchist concept of FAI-FRI. So, when I speak of FAI, i’m not referring to the informal organization, but to a different methodology of praxis. Certain words are outdated, words like “organization” i prefer not to use, as they do not represent us, they are different from us. As different as authority and society, with all the corollary of abominations and monstrosity.

CCF: A large part of the anarchist movement, both in practice and theory, contrast the state and its institutions, but don’t act likewise when it comes to civilization and technology. On the contrary, many are those who imagine self-organised factories and an “anarchist government” of our lives. What is your opinion on technology and civilization?

Alfredo: Still today, the vision of the nineteenth-century, scientific, positivist anarchism is the dominant one.

There are still those, in 2014, who raise absurd “questions” about the day after the revolution.

How to manage production, deal with the inevitable shortages, self-manage factories, regulate future social relationships. If i put in the center of my action, the contrast to civilization and technology, the concept of revolution as it was intended a century ago will be, in fact, put aside. Questioning civilization in its whole, implies a total, apocalyptic, utopic, unachievable destruction.

yes unachievable destruction.. but we do have means to make it irrelevant

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INFORMAL because we do not believe in vanguards nor do we think that we are an enlightened active minority. We just want to live as anarchists here and now and this is why we consider the informal organisation as the only kind of organisation capable of preventing the creation of any authoritarian and bureaucratic mechanism. It allows us to keep our independence as individuals and/or groups and to resist power with continuity. The Informal Anarchist Organisation practises *the armed struggle but it refuses classic monolithic organisations implying a base, regular and irregular members, columns, executive cadres, huge amounts of money and living on hiding. We think that this kind of structures is an easy target for power. In fact, an infiltrated cop or an informer is sufficient to have the whole organisation or a good part of it collapsed like a house of cards. On the contrary, as the informal organisation is formed by 1000 individuals or groups that do not know one another (as they recognise one another through the actions the carry out and the mutual support bonding them), if by some unfortunate chance infiltrators or informers should come out, this would affect a single group without spreading to the others. Furthermore, whoever takes part into the Informal organisation is a militant only when preparing and carrying out an action. The organisation, therefore, does not affect the entire life and projects of the comrades so that all kind of armed-struggle sectarianism are avoided. **Once we are well rooted, power will find it very difficult to destroy us. (drawn from the responsibility claim for the attempt on Prodi, that time president of the European Commission, 21 December 2003, taken from Il dito e la luna.page 14-15)

*if struggling and armed.. same song as classic monolith orgs et al

**not well rooted if still excluding someone as enemy.. has to be all of us for the dance to dance

The vital force of FAI-FRI is its constant renewal, its stimulating evolution. Today the need to overcome old concepts such as “organization”, “liberated society”, “revolution” is more urgent than ever before.

Other concepts such as “federalism”, “informality”, “mutual support”, ” horizontal-anonymous debate between groups/individuals through praxis”, ” rejection of plenary assemblies” retain their full strength as the main pillars of our planning.

oi

An ongoing *experimentation of revolt, nothing established, nothing permanent over time, only fixed point the insatiable desire for **freedom and the constant striving for anarchy.

*if still revolt ness.. not new/diff.. so not legit experimenting.. just repeating.. so won’t/can’t get to legit freedom

Nicola and i, by the action against Adinolfi (even though delayed), have joined this planning, making our own anti-civilizational and anti-technological contribution to FAI-FRI. Ve

there’s a legit use of tech (nonjudgmental expo labeling).. to facil a legit global detox leap.. for (blank)’s sake.. and we’re missing it

legit freedom will only happen if it’s all of us.. and in order to be all of us.. has to be sans any form of m\a\p.. we need tech to facil that supposed chaos

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CCF: As an anarchist nihilist do you accept the idea that “mass society will make its revolution when conditions are ripe” ?

Alfredo: as an anarchist nihilist i stand clearly against any deterministic vision of anarchism, against any “scientistic” anarchism.

I do not think that history will lead us by the hand towards anarchy, on the contrary I think our “destiny” is always to go against the tide. Society will always be based on some type or form of slavery.

The very thought that someday we will achieve the “perfect society” terrifies me, anarchy would be transformed into a regime. Utopia would become dystopia. I prefer to strive for anarchy and through this continuing tendency of mine, achieve happiness.

*Conditions are ripe when desire overcomes fear, **conditions are always ripe for an act of revolt. The more so, when revolt creates communities through complicity with other individualities, in that case our strength increases a hundredfold and proportionally our pleasure grows. Only the women and men of praxis can understand the true potential of the will: what seems impossible is carried out, desperate actions become an example reinforcing other desires.

*yeah that.. toward thurman interconnectedness law and imagine if we ness

**yeah that.. but revolt as cancerous distraction to overcoming fear et al

An anarchist without courage is an anarchist with no will, he knows what is right yet doesn’t have the strength to confirm it with deeds, he stands still watching, at most he speaks, he writes. The saddest existence of all.

no.. saddest is all of us.. until we all get out of sea world

hari present in society law.. hari rat park law et al

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That said, i have adopted the method of FAI-FRI because i oppose any organization, to avoid being subject to any kind of leadership, to bypass, with communication through claims, all those potentially authoritarian mechanisms, like assemblies, associations, base-cells, committees, movements, to protect my anonymity and mainly to reinforce my destructive potential through revolutionary campaigns, without setting limits to my individual freedom.

Not knowing directly the other brothers and sisters of FAI-FRI, charisma, prestige find it very hard to penetrate, limiting greatly the risks concerning our freedom. Only facts speak, only praxis, creation of the will, counts.

In the “classic” insurrectionalism, despite anonymity, everyone knows everyone, concepts, ideas develop within the assemblies, giving harmful space to the unavoidable specialists of theory, of ideology. When bypassing the plenary assemblies and communicating only through the actions of FAI-FRI, we can avoid spending valuable time arguing for hours about maximum systems with people who have never dirtied their hands with action and never will. Allowing us eventually to cut out of our lives those who do not put their words into practice.

today.. same to fighting/violence.. gershenfeld something else law

Today i feel the need to see the energy that i put into action bloom, reproduce, to see new paths built, through bouncing from one part of the world to another. Through responsibility claims, actions speak, spread, increase their virulence.

The practice of the so-called anonymity of action doesn’t satisfy me at all, no matter how respectable and pleasant it is, it does not reinforce our action, it does not favour debates, in the long run it grows weak, limiting, dissolving, isolating us. It reduces greatly the reproducibility of the deed which when not followed by words, fades out.

still cancerous distraction.. just because call them debates rather than ie: assemblies? above..

Anonymity of action in a social perspective has a sense of camouflage. They want to convince people, they seek consensus to start a revolution, they pretend to be “people” so that they can turn their action into heritage of “all”, for an action not claimed could have been carried out by “anyone”.

In that case, the action not claimed has a strong meaning, a meaning all political, social, a meaning that is likely to turn us into one of the many vanguards of the square.

Naturally, this could never be my own meaning, for i reject in its whole any social perspective regarding my action. Anonymity of action in an antisocial perspective finds its meaning in the recreational pleasure of trying to make whatever destroys us bleed, in that immense satisfaction of doing what needs to be done, simply because it’s right.

oi

Today, the debate is not between claiming responsibility or not, using an acronym or not, but between a social-political conception of anarchism and an antisocial-nihilistic conception of anarchy. A crucial choice, the one between anarchism and anarchy, revolution and revolt, old and new anarchy, a crucial and inevitable choice.

rather.. cancerous distractions.. was it this essay that started out talking of verbal gymnastics?

The anti-civilizational subject can not exist in a social perspective, just as much as there can be no anti-technological subject in a social perspective. Society, culture, technology, civilization: one can not exist without the other. Historically, only political parties with their authoritarian, hierarchical paraphernalia made a revolution. There is nothing more authoritarian than a revolution, nothing more anarchic than revolt.

um.. i don’t know.. i’d say if we use tech diff (nonjudgmental expo labeling; as it could be).. the others become irrelevant

Revolution structures, organizes, creates civilization and progress. Revolt deconstructs, has no future, leaves in the present, suspends our lives in an eternal ” here and now”, never satiates our desires pushing us forward to a continuous search of the impossible.

same song

A constant trend that feeds on the destruction of the existent. When I speak of “new anarchy” i refer to that anarchy that can easily exist without the concept of revolution, realism, politics.

The restless spirit of Bakunin, the visionary madness of Cafiero, the thirst for justice of Ravachol and Henry, the hatred and vengeance of Di Gioavanni, the poems and the lead of Novatore, the bloodthirsty despair of Bertoli are all part of this *“new anarchy”. The black international, my brothers and sisters of FAI-FRI are today the incarnation of this “new anarchy”.

cancerous distraction.. so .. *not new

The time has arrived to acknowledge that we are *different, that an abyss divides us from the old anarchism. We have no space for the great illusions: revolution, progress, civilization.

*not diff

Our path is *different from that of social, realist, rational, positivist, proactive, creator of new order and civilization anarchism. A different path that finds within anti-civilization the closing of a circle.

*not diff if anti ness.. let go

A circle that leads us to nowhere else than living life to the full. Defining ourselves carriers of “new anarchy”, naive as it may sound, serves as a distinction from the political anarchism as well as from a certain social insurrectionalism that oozes ideology.

CCF: ”Solidarity between anarchists of praxis is not just a word”. How have italian anarchists dealt with your case and how have they expressed their solidarity?

Alfredo: There are two types of solidarity. A passive one that all too often serves only to wash away conscience for someone’s own inactivity and that does not bridge the gaps between words and deeds.

And then the active, concrete, real solidarity that some call revolutionary, created in silence and anonymity, where only destructive actions speak even through the words that follow. Needless to say which one I prefer.

In final analysis, the best solidarity that i could receive is to see the planning of this new anarchy, in all of its forms, continue to move forward, insensible to the strokes of repression. I will not deny it, in every action that someone salutes us as anarchist prisoners, both in Italy and the rest of the world, my heart fills with joy.

This is my life today. The war continues, never give up, never give in.

so too then.. same song

Long live FAI-FRI

Long live CCF

Long live the black international

Alfredo Cospito

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