We have to find ways to Love and support each other through tough times.
lt is more than just believing that we can win:
we need to have structures in place that can carry us through
when we feel like we cannot go another step.
– Ashanti Alston
A new wind is sweeping through Europe, it has been spreading seeds. The last years anarchist organizations in the social lineare sprouting up in many places, slowly emerging from the soil. These organizations will grow and bloom into beautiful flowers of anarchist struggle and free life. We salute your efforts in the monumental task of going from collective to organization. We celebrate the founding of Midada in Switzerland, another step of growth and development of the Anarchist movement in Europe. We have been following you from a distance, we are excited to see your work bear its fruits in this foundational congress. We want to congratulate you for it! We live in convulsed times. Wars, climate change, impoverishment of the working classes and extreme surveillance are tendencies all around the globe. The promises of neoliberal infinite growth are, today more than ever, exposed as bloody lies. Colonialism, patriarchy and genocidal policies are perpetuating the suffering of the oppressed ones, the dispossessed. The Middle East is a turmoil of tensions, where blood and oil flow together alongside the Euphrates and Tigris, rivers that once witnessed the first settlements of humankind. The expulsion of Armenian people from Artsakh, the constant war against Rojava and the Kurdish people or the brutality of the Israeli State against Palestinian people are just some examples of what we are facing. Europe may seem far away from the levels of violence we experience in The Middle East, but at the same time societies are much more disintegrated. The war in Ukraine is also cracking the thin veneer of peace in Europe. Fascism is rising, sometimes with boots on the streets sometimes with suits in the cabinets, and their policies of hate will just accelerate the meltdown of social peace. Oppressed groups like migrants, warnen, LGBT+ will be most affected by their attacks. Climate catastrophes, as weil as wars, will force millions to exile, and those who will try to reach shelter in Europe will face terrible hardships. We, as organized anarchists, have a responsibility to provide answers those conditions. To fight against oppression, to organize the rage against authority as weil as the love among those who fight for freedom. lt is not an easy task, but if not us, who? lf not now, when? Our ideas have always been feared by rulers and governments, and our actions will bring consequences. Therefore we have tobe ready to defend ourselves and those who struggle with us. Obstacles will come from the inside too. Discussions and contradictions are a natural part of any organization. What matters is how we are able to learn from them and solve them constructively. We wish you success in this. With all that in mind, we want to extend an invitation to you. Come here with one or multiple militants, learn from this revolution! Our doors are open. As you may know, we have been working in Rojava (North-East Syria) for the last 7 years. For more than 10 years this region has been building a stateless society, a confederal system than may be one of the closest living examples of the society we want to build, though this has come with constant challenges. Our dreams of revolution and our commitment with international solidarity brought us here, and what we found made us stay. There are many lesson we want to share with you, as well as things we want to learn from your experiences. We see our works as part of a wider effort of anarchist militants, slowly rebuilding an international anarchist movement, based on solidarity and mutual aid, against the social devastation of capitalism and patriarchy. We are standing side by side, hand in hand. Today is a wonderful day for us to celebrate, and its memory will raise our spirits in darker days to come. Now, as Malatesta said at the end of the Anarchist congress in Amsterdam in 1907, „Comrades, to work!“
Revolutionary greetings and respect,
Tekoşîna Anarşîst
August 2024