Letter from Gabriel Pombo da Silva, Anarchist prisoner
@ | 22.04.2008 10:31 | Repression | Social Struggles | World
This text was written by Gabriel Pombo da Silva and read on the tour that his mother, Pastora did in April in some European countries. It was translated from German by ABC Berlin. Gabriel is in prison for his attempt to escape a police control near Aachen, after having escaped from Prison in Spain where he had suffered torture and isolation in the notorious FIES units.
8 March, Aachen.
The dream of so many politicians is to conceive cities as prisons: a camera on every corner, a strong reflector which does not leave anything in the darkness, a cop or a screw, who control each individual, and the fact that every protest or simple doubt about the system has to be reduced to a question of individual unsatisfaction, seeking then the useless judicial way, which guarantee us a line of "Rights", called by them Basic or Human Rights.
This dream is not just a mix of George Orwells "1984", or Aldous Huxleys "Brave new world", where the fears, real or constructed as they might be, the technologies, the drugs and the biotechnologies are making people subjects and objects of a totalitarian system. This dream is the reality nowadays, at both sides of the walls or the borders. When we say: "Todos somos presos", we are all prisoners, then we mean concretely: our being as objects, because of a system which wants us to forget our being as historical subjects, with our remembrances, consciousness and the strive for freedom and struggle, not as last through its brainwashing by the medias.
The "talk-show"- intellectuals and the "experts of politic" declared the working class to be dead, that there would not be proletariat or prejudice any longer, as much as there would not be any revolutionary potential, which would justify the theories about revolutions and class-struggles. The only thing which would remain to us would be to accept the exploitation by this system, which calls itself "democratic" and if there would be protests, then only by peaceful, passive means, in order to not disturb the system too much. With the same breath they call imperialist wars "humanitarian operations" and tortures "methods of interrogation", and such a list of euphemisms could be without an end.
The worst is not what the intellectual representatives of neo-liberalism and capital or the ones who work for the good of government and state - institutions declare, because they merely do their work, the one, for which from what they live.
The worst is to see and to listen how many normal people, who actually should be able to recognize such things better, are repeating like parrots the lies and the stupidities of those ruin' s preparers, without reflecting a moment by themselves.
The class-struggles are not an abstraction of the past, which should merely serve either a one-sided political analysis, nor the legitimation of whichever so-called "Workers Party".
We all, no matter if workers or not, us without power in our hands, a power which we are not even looking forward to have, are the ones who are building the class of the proletariat, conscious and not.
And within a society where it is clearly distinguished between the interests of the ones who stay below and the ones who stay above, it is decisive with which kind of consciousness the ones who are below either decide to oppose this system of inequality, or to accept it.
For me such a little political introduction is important, in order to tell you here an today, that our political work and intentions must not reduce themselves to the question of "Human-rights".
To be against prison and imprisonment on a broader level, as much as against isolation and torture on a smaller one, means to begin the "struggle for everything", within this system, where we all, on a different level, are prisoners in.
In the moment where some of us are getting together in order to fight against prisons and its belonging culture, this should not be happening because we want "more human prisons", no prison can ever be human, as much as slavery or tyranny can be.
The analysis of this part of the system let us better understand the society we are living in.
This because prisons are a small mirror of all dominant values and "tools", which are being used in order to break the resistance and will to live of the ones who dare to rebel, no matter if political or social prisoners.
This system of destruction and torture, like FIES in Spain, 41bis in Italy, isolation and preventive arrest (sichereitgewahrsam) in Germany, QHS in France or the F-type prisons in Turkey, to make this public and to protest can take off the mask out of the so-called "Human-rights" lies within the apparently "democratic" lands.
And we, humans with or without class-consciousness, we, the ones who are generally cut out, will never be sure to not find us one day within one of these cells.
This a Damocles sword, which is hanging permanently on our heads. And yes, we have to organise, because we have common interests beyond every possible wall, border or ideologies which separate us.
An example for what I am writing about could be seen in this talk today: Pastora, a worker and social fighter, together with a basque antiprison activist, a basque squatter, a german autonomen and me, a galician anarchist prisoner in Germany,
Together, beyond all differences that we can have among us, we build a moment of struggle, linked by our similarities and organised through few questions which we generally and universally repute of interest.
Right now are strongly arising new "Tarrios", "Pombos", "Ortizes", "Zamoros", along with new FIES-systems.
And we know that we come from the hearts of the disparity of possibilities and the injustice of this system.
We are used to this, as much as nowadays screws and torturers are nothing unusual, but rather "normal" people that do this what they do for money, and not because they are followers of any fascist ideology.
A thing which is twice as sad.
Surely the social mentality is also a result of the history of a collectivity, but not merely; only, the rebellion against the injustice is universal and it has nothing to do with culture, colour of the skin or origin, but much more with free individuals, humans, who refuse to be controlled and to become strangers in the name of "universal truth", which on the end does not exist.
The life-history of Xose', Paco Ortiz, Patxi Zamoro and thousand others, who are resisting today everywhere around the world, show us something which we ought not to forget: rebellion is possible everywhere, at any time. The bounds of friendship and love are stronger than all chains and punishments that they pull down on us.
Dignity, rebellion, friendship, love, solidarity, freedom, organisation, these are few of the ideas and values that we defend, for which we fight for. Yesterday, today and forever!
A salute in struggle from the destructive jail of Aachen, Germany.
I thank you all for your attention!
Gabriel
--
Gabriel Pombo Da Silva
JVA Aachen
Krefelderstrasse 251
52070 Aachen
Germany
The dream of so many politicians is to conceive cities as prisons: a camera on every corner, a strong reflector which does not leave anything in the darkness, a cop or a screw, who control each individual, and the fact that every protest or simple doubt about the system has to be reduced to a question of individual unsatisfaction, seeking then the useless judicial way, which guarantee us a line of "Rights", called by them Basic or Human Rights.
This dream is not just a mix of George Orwells "1984", or Aldous Huxleys "Brave new world", where the fears, real or constructed as they might be, the technologies, the drugs and the biotechnologies are making people subjects and objects of a totalitarian system. This dream is the reality nowadays, at both sides of the walls or the borders. When we say: "Todos somos presos", we are all prisoners, then we mean concretely: our being as objects, because of a system which wants us to forget our being as historical subjects, with our remembrances, consciousness and the strive for freedom and struggle, not as last through its brainwashing by the medias.
The "talk-show"- intellectuals and the "experts of politic" declared the working class to be dead, that there would not be proletariat or prejudice any longer, as much as there would not be any revolutionary potential, which would justify the theories about revolutions and class-struggles. The only thing which would remain to us would be to accept the exploitation by this system, which calls itself "democratic" and if there would be protests, then only by peaceful, passive means, in order to not disturb the system too much. With the same breath they call imperialist wars "humanitarian operations" and tortures "methods of interrogation", and such a list of euphemisms could be without an end.
The worst is not what the intellectual representatives of neo-liberalism and capital or the ones who work for the good of government and state - institutions declare, because they merely do their work, the one, for which from what they live.
The worst is to see and to listen how many normal people, who actually should be able to recognize such things better, are repeating like parrots the lies and the stupidities of those ruin' s preparers, without reflecting a moment by themselves.
The class-struggles are not an abstraction of the past, which should merely serve either a one-sided political analysis, nor the legitimation of whichever so-called "Workers Party".
We all, no matter if workers or not, us without power in our hands, a power which we are not even looking forward to have, are the ones who are building the class of the proletariat, conscious and not.
And within a society where it is clearly distinguished between the interests of the ones who stay below and the ones who stay above, it is decisive with which kind of consciousness the ones who are below either decide to oppose this system of inequality, or to accept it.
For me such a little political introduction is important, in order to tell you here an today, that our political work and intentions must not reduce themselves to the question of "Human-rights".
To be against prison and imprisonment on a broader level, as much as against isolation and torture on a smaller one, means to begin the "struggle for everything", within this system, where we all, on a different level, are prisoners in.
In the moment where some of us are getting together in order to fight against prisons and its belonging culture, this should not be happening because we want "more human prisons", no prison can ever be human, as much as slavery or tyranny can be.
The analysis of this part of the system let us better understand the society we are living in.
This because prisons are a small mirror of all dominant values and "tools", which are being used in order to break the resistance and will to live of the ones who dare to rebel, no matter if political or social prisoners.
This system of destruction and torture, like FIES in Spain, 41bis in Italy, isolation and preventive arrest (sichereitgewahrsam) in Germany, QHS in France or the F-type prisons in Turkey, to make this public and to protest can take off the mask out of the so-called "Human-rights" lies within the apparently "democratic" lands.
And we, humans with or without class-consciousness, we, the ones who are generally cut out, will never be sure to not find us one day within one of these cells.
This a Damocles sword, which is hanging permanently on our heads. And yes, we have to organise, because we have common interests beyond every possible wall, border or ideologies which separate us.
An example for what I am writing about could be seen in this talk today: Pastora, a worker and social fighter, together with a basque antiprison activist, a basque squatter, a german autonomen and me, a galician anarchist prisoner in Germany,
Together, beyond all differences that we can have among us, we build a moment of struggle, linked by our similarities and organised through few questions which we generally and universally repute of interest.
Right now are strongly arising new "Tarrios", "Pombos", "Ortizes", "Zamoros", along with new FIES-systems.
And we know that we come from the hearts of the disparity of possibilities and the injustice of this system.
We are used to this, as much as nowadays screws and torturers are nothing unusual, but rather "normal" people that do this what they do for money, and not because they are followers of any fascist ideology.
A thing which is twice as sad.
Surely the social mentality is also a result of the history of a collectivity, but not merely; only, the rebellion against the injustice is universal and it has nothing to do with culture, colour of the skin or origin, but much more with free individuals, humans, who refuse to be controlled and to become strangers in the name of "universal truth", which on the end does not exist.
The life-history of Xose', Paco Ortiz, Patxi Zamoro and thousand others, who are resisting today everywhere around the world, show us something which we ought not to forget: rebellion is possible everywhere, at any time. The bounds of friendship and love are stronger than all chains and punishments that they pull down on us.
Dignity, rebellion, friendship, love, solidarity, freedom, organisation, these are few of the ideas and values that we defend, for which we fight for. Yesterday, today and forever!
A salute in struggle from the destructive jail of Aachen, Germany.
I thank you all for your attention!
Gabriel
--
Gabriel Pombo Da Silva
JVA Aachen
Krefelderstrasse 251
52070 Aachen
Germany
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