Paris is burning again. And so it Marseille, Lyon and... loads of other places. This is the result of police murdering 17 year old Nahel M in the Paris suburb of Nanterre, and then, as usual, lying about what happened. The murder is just the latest in a long row of recent as well as historical events within France's racist and colonial tradition of exploitation, marginalization and violence directed towards people who have their roots in France's old colonial sphere. Few events exemplify this horrific tradition as strongly as the Paris massacre of 1961, when up to 300 Algerian protestors were killed by the cops.
But this issue also goes deeper. When the workers are constantly exploited for the benefit of a small political end economic elite, when we're manipulated by arrogant and corrupt politicians, when we see no hope, future or place in the society they force us to endure, when we live through climate disasters caused by the rapacious capitalist exploitation of our planet and are repeatedly faced with violence from the state when we raise our voices and take action - why would we have any loyalty at all with the system that is killing us and undermining our very conditions of existance?
The rebels in France are leading the way by burning down the system that daily tramples them, exploits them and murders them. Police stations and luxury cars are on fire, and so are banks. Barricades are erected, cops are being attacked, and the stores, where commodities that we cannot afford are mocking us from the selves, are now breached using stolen luxury cars. Great! Full solidarity with those that have had enough and are showing it in the streets!
However, in order for the riots to go beyond being just a spark that is eventually put out by the violence of the state, it has to not only spread geographically, but also socially. They have to link up with resistance against neoliberal austerity, against the pension reforms, and with the slumbering working class organization in the workplaces where our salaries are increasingly eroded while the rich are laughing at us and drowning in profits. The riots need to engulf schools and universities, in our neighborhoods where people are evicted and forced to live in squalid environments while the landlords make profits and gentrify.
Only then can the riot turn from a flickering promise to a burning revolutionary situation that really threatens the power and position of the capitalist elites and state bureaucrats. Let's do what we can to stimulate and encourage this development, while at the same time remembering that the same system is keeping us in chains wherever we are at, be it in Sweden or someplace else, and that we also need to organize resistance and build alternatives where we are, in the ways available to us. 🔥 🏴 🖤
#france #riots #acab #racism #colonialism #revolution