Solidarity Without End
This year as we are marking the International Day of Solidarity with Marius Mason and All Long-Term Anarchist Prisoners we are thinking about the nature of solidarity as ever-changing and never-ending. Our solidarity is not just for those who are imprisoned, but for all those who are harassed, intimidated, deported, hunted, on the run, tortured, and even killed — not just for individuals but for the struggles they are a part of. Just as repression ebbs and flows and state tactics adapt, transform, and innovate, so must our practice of active solidarity. We must adapt to the changing terrain and needs of our movements.
Solidarity does not end when trial ends and a verdict is reached, when a hunger strike has gotten its demands met, or even when somebody is released from custody back into the arms of their family and friends. The consequences of state repression last long beyond big moments and media attention. Whenever one cycle of struggle winds down as the target of the state, another will take its place. Whenever one comrade is released from prison, another will be taken in. Our support must continue to ripple out beyond our friends and immediate networks. It must extend beyond the borders of states into all lands and territories where people are fighting. It must expand beyond the present moment, honoring comrades of the past and thinking of what legacy we will leave for those who come after us.
While our tactics and strategies change and evolve over time, we must always meet the moment with an impulse to push ahead and not remain waiting. We may take moments of evasion and defensive posture, only to come back stronger and more intransigent. The context we find ourselves is always changing, but our purpose remains the same. Solidarity without end means always acting towards the goal of destroying the prevailing order.
The stakes remain the same even as the terrain shifts. The threats remain the same even if they are becoming more common. Previously short sentences have become longer with terrorist designations and enhancements. Camps develop beside prisons. Policing becomes a more obvious occupation. Murders become genocides. This isn’t new, but really a return to a previously escalated state that built the settler-colonial empires. The far right reactionaries of the world have been regaining influence and power for quite some time, building off of the fear of concurrent crises, while the moderates try to cling to a modern status quo by treading water in a rising, turbulent tide. The crises are real — so are the economic downturns and increasing shortages, and so will be the violence handed down from on high as authorities try to maintain and further centralize their power.
Anarchists and others who speak and act out are already being explicitly targeted in Iran, Russia, Belarus, Indonesia, Italy, Greece, Mexico, the US, and elsewhere. Those who seek to maintain the status quo cry out, “they can’t do that!” We acknowledge they always have, if only on smaller and more polite scales in the recent past. The fear of those in power is also being realized, as we see the proliferations of uprisings around the world crashing like waves upon an eroding beach. We see how authority is vulnerable in crisis as the fight returns to old venues like workplaces and barricades, while we also plot out new avenues of attack.
The consequences for acting against the dominant order seem to be escalating, so we are pushed to acknowledge what we’ve always known to be true: half measures are a trap. Collaborating with the left and moderate statists on their terms is just empowering them to their own coercion and top-down violence should they win out. We find productive accomplices when we act on anarchist principles, building empowerment of everyone against any new authority. The power over our lives must remain in our own hands — unmediated — and it seems a great deal of people acknowledge this when data centers and artificial intelligence become a focus of resistance.
The ongoing climate catastrophe was acknowledged by our imprisoned fighters decades ago while new technologies like AI continue the ecocidal course. Preparing for the shortages, we shell up to counterattack — ideally without fortifying to the point of not being adaptable. As the terrain shifts we can remain mobile, without waiting for the new repression. Solidarity without end is anticipatory as much as it is active.
Confronting the real stakes of our struggles – life and death – need not lead us down the path of constant pessimism. Instead, it can provide us with the gift of appreciation for each small victory and mundane, beautiful thing. This too, is a cycle of solidarity. There are days that break our hearts. There are days that once again fill them up again so much we fear they might burst out of our chests. Each comrade is precious. As is every release, acquittal, dropped charge, or non-cooperating plea to get time-served, each small victory won through a strike, each collective action or bold individual revolt despite everything telling them its not worth it. We must allow every one to bring a smile to our faces, even while so many others remain caged. We must allow each small victory to take its place in the narrative of our struggles, connecting past to future. We must let this appreciation give us strength and daring. This year, we are celebrating the recent release of Hybachi LeMar, Peppy, and Casey Brezik. Marius Mason, after nearly two decades in federal prison, is set to be released to a halfway house in May of this year. Charges are starting to get dismissed for the Stop Cop City defendants in the U.S. Monica Caballero in Chile is up for another chance at parole. Charges have been dismissed against a comrade in Munich and 5 anarchists in Belarus have been released. Active, principles, and expansive solidarity continues across the world, especially exemplified by comrades in Greece around the Ampelokipi trial...
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