The Direct Urgency of Attack

I. The miracle workers of social salvation

We live in a dull, predictable and mechanical age. We live in the dictatorship of numbers of the financial crisis, of unemployment statistics, stock market analysis and of generalized social fear.

At the same time, the humanist merchants of “progressive” ideologies are seeking new clients. The wandering miracle workers advertise their ideological merchandise and promise social cure. Alternative energy sources, “green” industrial growth, fair taxation, respect for the workers’ rights, medical insurance, social state…

All these are followed by various “anarchist” charlatans, who advertise more libertarian quackeries for the coming of utopia. Social justice, self-management of the means of production, direct democracy, workers’ councils…

But even the “anarchist” remedies for social salvation, although they promise to liberate our lives, the only thing they do, is reprogramming the social apparatus by using a more libertarian manual. A cat, even if one paints it black and red, is still a cat.

But why is there such a need within the anarchist circles, for some to pretend to be the doctors of the social syphilis? Anarchy is not a social painkiller, it’s a poison. It doesn’t soothe the pain, nor does it lull with future promises of a “just” society but on the contrary, it poisons thinking and acting, aiming at the destruction of the existent and the creation of unexplored passions and tensions, that have nothing to do with the old world.

Unfortunately, today we have been taught to value life as an object. We no longer live our life, we are buying it in small doses. We buy objects to become happy, we buy ideals to believe in, we buy relationships to communicate, we buy time to enjoy ourselves.

All the remedies, that suggest a vague future revolution, don’t say a word about the destruction of the civilization of Power. In their more “anarchist” version, they are satisfied with suggesting the destruction of some of the material infrastructure (prisons, ministries etc.) of the old world. This means, in a few words, that the rest of the spoils of war will be saved. Technology, work, civilization, the power of majority will haunt the new utopia of our existence.

But for us, the new anarchist guerrilla is not just the blow-up of some human targets and buildings, but the blow-up of all social relationships. For us, the political suggestions of social movements, which simply want a more just, more equal, but equally predictable and dull, world, are not enough.

We don’t want to be slaves of the possible, of numbers and analysis once again. That is why we don’t seek pre-made revolutionary programs and the answers to everything. What value would life have, if it runs out of questions?

We read time after time the analysis, the suggestions, the programs even anarchist texts full of definitions, with complicated terms and an unending bibliography, which try to explain their utopia, to give solution, to persuade people for their validity. They serve us stale Marxism and exercises of intellectual potency. Too many words are written, to display their knowledge. Some know very well the games of words and admire themselves…

But in the end, the most interesting question is, how are we going to attack today and how are we going to live now in a more dangerous and free way.

II. Attack, attack, attack

This why I want to continue the conversation, initiated by comrade Nicola Gai from prison in Italy, about the direct urgency of attack.

So, speaking about anarchist continuous attack, we consider conscience to be its starting point. But because all too often, excuses for the suspension of attack, steal the most beautiful words, it is necessary to define what we mean by the words anarchist conscience.

Conscience for us is not an analysis after another, the display of dusty historical knowledge, academic assemblies with political speeches, unending monologues and dull economic researches. We don’t need neither flashy speeches nor expressive ornaments in order to convince an audience or to strengthen the myth of the romantic, dreaming and conscious “revolutionary” who sacrifices himself for the sake of others. We don’t care about massiveness or acceptance.

Conscience starts with a simple thought, a direct reflection, an individual revolt.

Conscience is the way we understand our self and its uniqueness, the way we build relationships and communicate with others, the way we live our life, not as a granted and predictable situation, but as a sequence of conflicts from which we discover new values, experiences and emotions… The anarchist conscience is the way we laugh, we fall in love, we enjoy ourselves, we dream…

These things cannot be found only in books and in the political speeches, that want to analyze everything. Besides, we are at war, not in some economic conference or literary contest.

In the situation of the armed encounter with power, it is the one who transforms his words into action that counts and not the one who speaks with beautiful words.

So, our attack is the result of our conscience and our desire not only to escape from the rules and the compromises of the social apparatus, but also to destroy it.

The attack against the system, explosions, robberies, executions, sabotage, fire are not just the tools of an invisible struggle, but the struggle itself, our own way to live free here and now. This is not about an armed fetish of means, but rather a different approach to the “variety” of the struggle, which strikes the theoretical brakes and abolishes the experts of violence.

An anarchist bank robbery or the execution of a cop is not a cut off, spectacular image as the media represent it, like a detective novel. It is a whole procedure between comrades who think, talk, suggest, decide, plan and transform their words into action. It is a live situation in which relationships, strength and emotions are being put to the test…

It is a desire in motion. It is the undertaking of risk, besides there is no life without risk. All the working hours of academic conversations can’t compare to a single moment of direct action.

Anarchy meets its live experience, only when one decides to arm himself, to put his hood on and terminate the programmed clock of his life once and for all.

III. The sad lie of the intermediate social struggles

Naturally, we know that throughout history, only minorities of individuals were ready to live and die for what they believed in. But, this decreases neither the value nor the pleasure of battle.

Besides, the timeless phantasy of preparing the large masses as a perquisite for the attack against authority can only result in suspensions.

For us, anarchy is first of all an individual choice which results in the sharpening of the struggle for collective revolt. It is a choice that we experience here and now, using with full force and audacity all the means of attack in our disposal.

On the other hand, “civil” anarchists look desperately for a conscious proletarian class, which will transform into the vanguard of “social revolution”, with only a friendly nudge. In this way, the veterans of theory hide themselves behind timeless suspensions, wating for the mature objective circumstances.

At the same time they express intense criticism and launch furious attacks against any comrade who crosses the line of what is socially acceptable, of the logic of measure and mediocrity. For example, all “socialists” anarchists, are willing to accept small symbolic attacks, as long as they are covered behind the participation of many (so if something goes wrong, everyone can think that he is not the one who is going to be caught) as long as there are no serious penal consequences (prison terrorizes the assumed tomorrow’s destroyers of the existent) and of course as long as they don’t scare people away (you don’t have to be an election candidate to be a politician).

This is how a safe routine of “anarchist militancy” is created, which spends itself in small doses by taking part in meaningless street fights, every now and then, during public protests. I don’t want to be misunderstood here, I consider every launch of a Molotov bomb, as a breath of insurrection inside the metropolitan prison. Besides, all of us have had our first insurrectional experiences in such street fights, between tear gases, fires and cop chases.

But using these peaceful public protests as an opportunity for sabotage and attack is one thing and considering these conflicts of opportunity as the acceptable limit and the only possibility of “social insurrection” is another.

Nothing and no one can make us restrict our desires and acts of attack in the name of what is socially acceptable.

A society that is not frightened by slavery ethics, the dictatorship of money , the coldness of technology, the destruction of nature and is frightened by the fact that some cops or government officials may trip over the Kalashnikov shots of anarchist urban guerrillas, is of no importance and hostile to us.

At this point, I think that it is necessary to talk about class references and intermediate struggles. Unfortunately, many insurrectional anarchist comrades still carry the social heritage of traditional anarchists. We can read about “the need to connect with society”, in many anarchist texts. The complex of feeling guilty for being different, hides inside this phrase. Why should we connect with society? We are part of society, since we were born in it and since we were taught its rules. But now, as anarchists, we refuse it and we fight against it, because the only thing it can offer is compromise, oppression and boredom. Why then should we return back to the womb and connect with everything we have already refused? The notion of connecting with the “fighting” parts of society as a necessary perquisite in order to promote subversion and insurrection isn’t much different from what communist parties want, which is leading the masses to social revolution. We don’t believe in vanguards, nor do we wait the idle mass to learn how to breathe freely.

As R. Novatore wrote “You are waiting for the revolution! Let it be! Mine has started a long time ago!”

Besides, if we want to talk about class struggle, we have to admit, that the cohesion of the working class is based solely on coercive economic conditions, experienced by the oppressed and not on some affinity of perceptions, choices, values ​​and practices. This means, that the social order is more a coercive norm of power rather than a conscious community of people.

We do not seek alliances within the coercions, but through each one’s options.

We are not satisfied by ephemeral “partnerships” with those, with who we may at some point find ourselves on the road or behind a barricade, because their salary was reduced or because they were fired from their jobs, without them having doubted or negated the ethics of labor for even a single moment. In short, the stones thrown in order for the masses to acquire the right to work, a good salary and the security of a pension, are not the same with ours. We refuse to work and the world of owners.

This is why we don’t seek those, who want to regain the favor of labor rights, of the lost welfare State, but those who are willing to lose everything, in order to regain their lives from scratch. Besides, among the first one will find the biggest traitors, who will be the first to abandon him, sell him out or even turn against him, when standing in front of the lure of a promise, that will financially relieve them.

On the contrary, among the latter, one will discover some of his most authentic and close friends and comrades .

This does not mean, that we stay neutral in the name of some ideological purity, when an intermediate social struggle is in progress. Instead, we seize the opportunity to strike again and again. But we do not get lost in the mass of workers and popular assemblies in order for us to convince or get convinced.

We map the city and carry the war everywhere we want. When the cops are busy with downtown street fights, some of us do not need to be there to contribute by throwing another molotov cocktail. We take advantage of the military absence of cops from other parts of the city and we raid police precincts, banks, luxury malls, carrying the chaos of anarchist insurrection everywhere.

We like to gamble our lives away from the defensive struggles.

IV. FAI-IRF The network of cells

FAI-IRF’s proposal satisfies this very desire of ours and converts the direct urgency of attack into a practical experience here and now.

FAI-IRF does not follow the clock of social struggles. The indicators of its own clock are nailed on here and now.

Through practical theory all of us, anarcho-nihilists, anti-civ anarchists, chaotics create our own international network of conspiracy and direct action and we attack first.

We make small flexible cells, diffused into the transparent social prison of the metropolises, striking in a surprising and coordinated way. In this way, FAI and CCF weave their own web, which aims to poison the system’s function. There are no protocols or statutes, in order for anyone to participate in the adventure of the new anarchist urban guerrilla. Each individual can team up with his closest comrades and create a FAI cell, in order to participate in the international revolt of the Black International of Anarchists of Praxis.

In this way, cells are created, which, without knowing each other, develop affinity relationships between them and promote direct action, the antisocial tendency and international solidarity. These are the three keys, that make up FAI. This doesn’t mean, that FAI-IRF is a centralized organization, which absorbs any differences in the name of uniformity. On the contrary, FAI cells discover their agreements and their productive disagreements through their actions. In this way, through different communiques, starts a meaningful dialog, whose aim is not to discover the one and only truth, but to promote the evolution of practical theory.

Only through disagreement and dialectics among comrades, comes the evolution of the individual and the sharpening of the intensity of life.

We, the comrades participating in FAI-IRF project, come from different countries, but also belong in different anarchist tensions. Among us, we find anarcho-nihilists, chaotics, anti-socialists, anti-civ anarchists, anti-speciecists, who discover our affinity through our actions. Because, as it has been written before “words often bring us apart, but our actions make us meet again”. So, FAI doesn’t wear ideological labels nor does it tolerate ideological dogmas, but recognizes its diversity and tensions and promotes continous anarchist insurrection.

Texts like “The direct urgency of attack“, written by comrade Nicola Gai, offer us the ground to talk and know each other better. So it is important for this dialogue to continue with texts, prisoners’ letters and direct action communiques.

FAI grows stronger everyday, new anarchy spreads in places, where the Black International was only a rumor until yesterday. Australia, Russia, Belarus, Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, Finland, Bolivia are added to the countries already “contaminated” by FAI like Italy, Indonesia, Greece, United Kingdom, Chile, Mexico, Spain…

Now the bet grows stronger. Direct action of anarchists of praxis kills the inhibitions and the cowardice of traditional anarchists, who are afraid of risking, so that they won’t lose their illusions about the eternal moment of massive rebellion.

This is why, when FAI and CCF practice anarchist action here and now, the devotees of the anarchist movement react with fear, defense and slander when it comes to actions which go beyond their pseudo-anarchist rhetoric.

We’re done with the excuses of cowards.

The lie of the mature objective conditions, the anticipation for society’s awareness and the alibi of small symbolic actions in order for everyone to use these means of struggle, became all too boring.

We create the conditions ourselves, we don’t wait the masses in order to go on the offensive and clash with authority and certainly no violence’s specialist is needed to create an incendiary device or to pull the trigger of a gun. Anarchist conscience and the desire for the direct urgency of attack is all what is needed.

FAI and CCF, together with all the anarchists of praxis, attack the peace of the many and create the possibilities for the realization of a free and anarchic life.

“If you came to this world only to count your days and leave, you have nothing to fear. The quiet man is never hurt. It’s just that the ugliness of this world has been built by the quiet men. Because quiet men with their apathy helped ugliness to become worse.”