Just found out about a new ABC group formed in Greece – Anarchist Black Cross anarchist solidarity cell. See below for their statement and check out their website for more information/updates: http://abcsolidaritycell.espivblogs.net/
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Historical information about anarchist black cross is pretty limited. However, according to Rudolph Rocker (cashier of the London anarchist black cross), anarchist black cross (also known as anarchist red cross (arc) was founded between 1900 and 1905. It is possible that these dates are not very precise. According to Harry Weinstein, one of the two founders of the organization, it started after his arrest during July or August 1906. As soon as he was released, Weinstein, together with others, offered clothes to anarchists that had been sentenced to exile in Siberia. The above were the first stages of abc. According to other sources, abc was founded in 1907.
However, there is no doubt on why abc was founded. It was formed through division from the political red cross (prc). prc was controlled by social-democrats and denied to support anarchist and social revolutionaries political prisoners, despite the constant donations from several anarchists and social revolutionaries. During the next seven decades, the group will continue with several names, but always considering itself part of the more general formation of anarchist black cross/ anarchist red cross. abc ‘s support towards the political prisoners spread across the planet and is now an international organizational structure with groups in almost every state worldwide.
Somewhere here, in 2016, we ‘re also announcing the foundation of anarchist black cross-anarchist solidarity cell.
As anarchists, we perceive the need of a multiform anarchist struggle, posing the issue of attack against state and vassalage that is imposed, with every means possible, here and now.
Inside this context, we do not consider that the action of our anarchist comrades is finished after imprisonment or repression. On the contrary, we consider the anarchist prisoners as a part of the anarchist struggle in a political, theoretical and practical level. Their position after the arrest, the ascension of the political responsibility or the defence of their political identity when they deny the charges. The denial to recognize any authority of the judicial institutions, their stubborn no-alientation from the totalitarian and nightmarish environment of prison, their unyielding struggle against the material reality of imprisonment through attempts to escape, all these create a consignment of the same value, as their actions before prison and arouse the consciences of those who are out of prison, resisting or hereunder resisting. So, our immediate and actual solidarity comes as an act of support and recognisal of the struggle of our comrades, the aggregate of the political subjects, regardless of their action.
We primarily consider that illegality, as a denial of an individual to abide with the state’s laws, can by itself be a political act, even its subject does not identify herself/himself as an anarchist but has leaded her/his life with dignity, in or out of prison. Hence, the identity of the social prisoner is not something homogenous and an absolute separation between the social and the political prisoners as political subjects or subjects of resistance is for as neither possible nor legit. So, the fact that, organizationally, as a structure, we chose to specifically target towards the support of the anarchist political prisoners, is connected with strategical targets and priority because of political relativity and does not negate our solidarity to social or political prisoners not identifying themselves as anarchists.
Solidarity means recognition of the struggle but, not necessarily, identification. For us, the choices of the anarchist war prisoners are conscious logical choices, the only consistent corollary of their analyses’, coming to complete a more general puzzle in the anarchist struggle. Like this, we feel like complementing one another in the eternal way of anarchy.
We support the multiform anarchist theory and action but, as anarchist black cross solidarity cell, our solidarity will take the form of public actions of solidarity and support.
In our blog, abcsolidaritycell.espivblogs.net, we will upload notifications about anarchist prisoners as well as notifications from their trials.
Micropolitic logics and clashes have no place in the anarchist struggle for the end of states and power. Our goal is not self-reference but to destroy what exists.
Anarchist Black Cross – anarchist solidarity cell
