The War Before The War

Commentary from Mumia Abu-Jamal

https://www.prisonradio.org/commentary/the-war-before-the-war/

#FreeMumia #War #RegimeChange #PoliticalPrisoner

Quote of the day, 12 March: St. Titus Brandsma

Early on Thursday, March 12, a police officer entered Titus’ cell to announce: “In the name of the Supreme Commander of the Security Police, I inform you that you are to follow me. You are leaving for the camp in Amersfoort. Transport is waiting.”

In the central yard, Titus found at least a hundred prisoners in formation; on command, they climbed into canvas-covered trucks for the trip to the concentration camp at Amersfoort, in the interior of the Netherlands. The vehicles formed a caravan under the guard of the SS Police. 

At nine o’clock in the morning, the convoy pulled into the central square of the concentration camp at Amersfoort. Guards bellowed orders: “Out quickly! Form a line and prepare for inspection!”

There the bedraggled group stood, from nine in the morning until one o’clock that afternoon, buffeted unmercifully by a frigid north wind, their feet covered with a heavy blanket of snow. All prisoners began their stay in Amersfoort standing in formation for hours, sometimes as many as eighteen. This was a practice favored by the Nazis to break the spirit of new arrivals. And it worked. How better impress on these unfortunates that they were worthless, useless dregs of humanity. When their masters finally deigned to remember they existed, it would be only to issue some new command.

On the day of Titus’ arrival, the order came at one o’clock: strip, and leave all personal effects aside. Totally naked in the frigid winter air, the prisoners were formed into groups of ten and then continued to wait. Finally, they were ordered to put on the camp’s “uniform,” rag-tag surplus remnants from the old Dutch army: pants and military jacket, worn years before by youthful, in shape soldiers; the clothing literally swallowed up Titus’ slight form. The ensemble was completed by an overcoat, which would be taken away on March 21, the first day of spring, even though in the Netherlands it would still be quite cold, and in 1942, very rainy as well.

The prisoners would spend entire days with their clothes and shoes soaked: camp regulations must be followed. Along with the uniform, each prisoner was given a number—Titus was issued Nº 58—and a colored triangle to be sewn onto the jacket pocket. As a political prisoner, Titus was assigned a red one.

Miguel Maria Arribas, O.Carm.

Chapters VIII and IX (excerpts)

Arribas O.Carm., M 2021, The Price of Truth: Titus Brandsma, Carmelite, Carmelite Media, Darien, Illinois.

Featured image: A portrait drawing of Fr. Titus when he was imprisoned at Amersfoort Transit Camp 12 March to 28 April 1942. The artist, John Dons, captures the complete sadness of the concentration camp yet sees with Fr. Titus a willing acceptance of pain and a profound inner peace. John Dons was later executed. Image credit: Carmelites (used with permission of the Nederlands Carmelitaans Instituut)

#Mumia Abu-Jamal - Unterlassene Hilfeleistung - Der politische Gefangene Mumia Abu-Jamal droht zu erblinden. Medizinische Behandlung zu verweigern ist im Gefängnissystem der #USA üblich

https://www.jungewelt.de/artikel/518810.mumia-abu-jamal-unterlassene-hilfeleistung.html

#BlackPanther #repression #politicalprisoner
#FreeMumia #FreeThemAll

Kolumne von #Mumia Abu-Jamal: Kamau Sadiki zum 73. Geburtstag

https://www.jungewelt.de/artikel/518811.kamau-sadiki-zum-73-geburtstag.html

#BlackPanthers #repression #politicalprisoner
#FreeMumia #FreeKamauSadiki #FreeThemAll!

On Cooperators and Their Sympathizers

Support the non-cooperating Prairieland defendants Autumn Hill, Benjamin “Champagne” Song, Daniel “Des” Rolando Sanchez Estrada, Dario Sanchez, Elizabeth Soto, Ines Soto, Janette Goering, Joy “Rowan” Gibson, Lucy Fowlkes, Maricela Rueda, Rebecca Morgan, Savanna Batten, and Zachary Evetts here: https://prairielanddefendants.com/meet-the-defendants/

Meagan Morris is currently supported as well and part of the collective defense effort standing trial, although according to available documents she initially cooperated, requesting interviews with law enforcement and providing information on other defendants that led to their subsequent arrests.

“A ‘rat’ is a traitor, a conceiver, planner or physical participator

He doesn’t sell secrets for power or cash

He betrays the trust of his team or his family hoping to save his own cowardly ass” – from “Snitches & Rats” by 21 Savage

We may say that people cooperate and have the right to, and that we also have the right to exclude them from our supportive efforts. The mutual hostility of right then barely conceals a real antagonism that has not been addressed in practice. When left to the choice of individuals, any ethics of non-cooperation is ultimately left to a matter of moral qualities absent the consideration of the conditions and social relations within which they are cultivated. Without this, the question of whether or not people can withstand the blows of repression has no content beyond their shapeless fears of what is to come.

This then leads the betrayals of cooperators to be excused by any number of factors in the situation, as if anyone would be susceptible to cooperate if they had to endure the experience of the rat. The rat then becomes a tragic figure. Having to face their betrayal tugs on our heartstrings, and the tragedy then merely reflects back a farce upon us. We then cringe from the specter of responsibility that hangs over us. When we flinch before the facts of what must be done, anything becomes excusable, and basic facts of a situation become distorted. What is a typical night in jail for the many people who never talk instead becomes “torture,” because we must feel empathy for the coward who cannot stomach their own discomfort. The actions of the state to compel such equivocations from the captured lead to a horror of any means of coercion at all, yet this is precisely the necessity with which we are confronted. It is then not a matter of abstract individuals possessing more or less intrinsic qualities, but the contention of a balance of forces in struggle.

It cannot be said then that the rat deserves “nothing.” Such actions require responses for our own protection, for our own longevity. The baseline hatred and disgust for the rat is the ambient recognition of this necessity of survival in a struggle against a society of hostile relations. This task cannot be managed by any mutual respect for the rights of individuals. In a political movement, we simply cannot do whatever we want. For any concerns of authoritarianism, there is no greater assertion of the authoritarian personality than the singular and unilateral declaration that one’s own life is worth more than another facing repression and deciding instead to send others to prison to save your own skin. The rat makes a wager: “maybe the state will take less of my life-time if I give them the means of taking the life-time of others.” It is the very logic of competition that emanates from the essence of capitalist social relations. The rat then creates a situation in which a contrary force must match this threat. Authority is then not the problem in itself. It is rather a problem of an antagonistic relation that must be confronted.

There is then the necessity of creating the actual means of developing behavior that successfully reproduces revolutionary movements, and suppressing that which threatens this development. The means of effecting this in a conscious and directed manner in our lives and relations is then a clear necessity. Against the asymmetrical force of the state, there is no room to maneuver if the actions of the cooperator are tolerated to any extent. Even the expression of empathy for their ordeal communicates a weakness that will be exploited either immediately or in the near future and simply wastes time that no one has. We then become enamored with the tragedy and turn away from the reasons of those who never cooperated to remain steadfast as they have, an immensely more enriching source of education than can be found in the motivations of a rat. In this very differentiation we find the foundations for a movement that will be resilient to repression.

A movement cannot tolerate any hesitation on this matter. We all must take note of who does balk in the face of the necessity of non-cooperation and insulate ourselves from their presence and influence. The means of support in the face of repression have to cohere into a definite political front and be leveraged to deter cooperation. A rat must not only receive no support, but must be subject to actions that demonstrate to all those who bear witness that betrayal has consequences. Anything less than this fails to recognize that the repression that faces individuals is but a single front in a struggle that pervades throughout the whole of social life. Supporting each other against this very repression negates that which separates us through conscious action upon these interdependent relations. As such, support is then never unconditional, for it creates a series of reciprocal obligations between partisans. Solidarity is the cohesion that arises from the recognition of this necessity put into practice.

Richard Hunsinger

Source: A Single Hail From Below

8 years behind bars, labor groups press for release of unionist Maoj Maga
“The charges against him were meant to silence his union work. Eight years is too long. He should be free.”
The post 8 years behind bars, labor groups press for release of unionist Maoj Maga appeared first on Bulatlat.
https://www.bulatlat.com/2026/02/26/8-years-behind-bars-labor-groups-press-for-release-of-unionist-maoj-maga/

#bulatlat #philippines #CivilPoliticalRights #Maojmaga #PoliticalPrisoner

#CatchOfTheDay
#OpenAccess on
#MENAdoc:

"موقوفیت خاطره‌لای - Mevkufiyet hatıraları" by Yusuf Akçura

[Orenburg: Kerimof, Hüseyinof ve Şürekası Matbaası, 1907]

http://dx.doi.org/10.25673/121282

#russia #history #politicalprisoner

Update on Repression in Italy: “Operation City”