Anarchists Welcome
Special Cases: The Anarchists

Given the anti-anarchist campaign launched by those of “good conscience” and the well-behaved left united in a holy crusade with the old right to accuse the anarchists, young and old, of challenging the system (as if anarchism had another option), including the dismantling of their shows (this thing about turning the lights off, was that so we wouldn’t see the anarchists?), and the repetition ad nauseum of epithets such as “anarcho-hardliners,” “anarcho-provocateur,” “anarcho-thugs,” “anarcho-etcetera” (somewhere I read the epithet “anarcho-anarchist,” isn’t that sublime?), the Zapatista men and women cannot ignore the climate of hysteria that so firmly demands respect for windowpanes (which don’t reveal but rather hide what happens just behind the counter: slave-like work conditions, a total lack of hygiene, poor quality, low nutritional value, money laundering, tax evasion, and capital flight).

Because now, apparently, the robbery poorly disguised as “structural reform,” the assault on the teachers union, the national patrimony “outlet” sale, the theft imposed by the government on the governed through taxation, and the fiscal asphyxiation – which only favors the large monopolies – is the anarchists’ fault.

This includes blame for the fact that now “decent people” don’t go out into the street to protest anymore (“hey but what about the marches, sit-ins, roadblocks, graffiti, flyers…” “Yes, but those are teachers-bus drivers-vendors-students, that is, country bumpkins, and I’m talking people really-truly-from-the Federal District.” “Ah, the mythical middle class, so courted and yet so despised and cheated by the entire political spectrum and all of the media…”), the fact that the institutional left also evicts the protest rallies, the fact that the “only opposition to the regime” has been overshadowed by the nameless again and again, the fact that the arbitrary imposition is now called “dialogue and negotiation,” the fact that the murder of migrants, women, youth, workers, children – all of this is the anarchists’ fault.

For those who fight as and claim the “A,” a flag without a nation or frontiers, and who are part of the SIXTH—but who really are in the struggle, not just as a fashion or a fad—we have, in addition to an embrace of solidarity, a special request.

Anarchist Compas: We Zapatista men and women aren’t going to blame you for our shortcomings (or lack of imagination), nor are we going to hold you responsible for our mistakes, much less persecute you for being who you are. Actually, I should tell you that various invitees to the August course cancelled because, they said, they couldn’t share the classroom with “young people who are anarchist, ragged, punk, pierced, and tattoo-covered,” and that they (those who are not young, nor anarchist, nor ragged, nor punk, nor pierced, nor tattoo-covered) expected an apology and a purging of the registry. They continue to wait in vain.

What we would like to request is that when you register, you submit a text, maximum one-page in length, where you respond to the criticism and accusations that they have leveled against you in the for-profit media. That text will be published in a special section of our website (enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx) and in a magazine-fanzine-or-whatever-it’s-called soon to appear in the globally global world, written and run by indigenous Zapatistas. It will be an honor for us to have your word together with ours in our first issue.

Huh?

Yes, even a page with a single word taking up the whole space counts: something like “LIARS!!” Or something longer, such as “We would explain to you what Anarchism is if we thought you would understand;” or, “Anarchism is incomprehensible to those with little brains;” or, “Real change first appears in the police blotter;” or, “I shit on the thought police;” or the following citation from the book “Golpe y contragolpe” by Miguel Amorós: “Everyone should know that the Black Bloc is not an organization but a tactic of street struggle similar to “Street Fighting [Kale Baroka] that a constellation of libertarian, “autonomous” or alternative groups have been using since the struggles for the squats (“okupations”) in the 1980s in various German cities,” and add something like, “if you are going to criticize something, first do your research. Well-written ignorance is like well-pronounced idiocy: equally useless.”

In any case, I’m sure that you won’t be lacking in ideas.