There are lots of thoughts, ideas and desires, in the thinking of the coronavirus and the next stage, how to survive this crisis, where do we go from here, what shape do we want the new normal to look like. So some sound advice and fresh ideas are always welcome and as anarchists we should be leading the way in those ideas and actions, pointing to that new normal.
Surviving the Virus: An Anarchist Guide
Capitalism in Crisis—Rising Totalitarianism—Strategies of Resistance
The pandemic is not going to pass in the next few weeks. Even if strict confinement measures succeed in cutting the number of infections down to what it was a month ago, the virus could resume spreading exponentially again as soon as the measures are suspended. The current situation is likely to continue for months—sudden curfews, inconsistent quarantines, increasingly desperate conditions—though it will almost certainly shift form at some point when the tensions within it boil over. To prepare for that moment, let’s protect ourselves and each other from the threat posed by the virus, think through the questions about risk and safety that the pandemic poses, and confront the disastrous consequences of a social order that was never designed to preserve our well-being in the first place.
This text offers medical advice for dealing with the virus; this one addresses the importance of mutual aid. You can find a list of mutual aid initiatives in the US here and in Germany here. Learn more about rent strike initiatives here and here. You can print out a zine version of this text here. For an introduction to anarchism, try this.
And a message from Thessaloniki:
Here is a translated excerpt :
Interventions with sprays and pamphlets outside: Agios Dimitrios hospital, the Euromedica clinic on Lambraki str, Bioiatriki on Olympiados str, a medical equipment store on Egnatia street and various pharmacies.
« A cage went in search of a bird »
So where are we at? We, who compromised by changing at least a little of our lifestyle. Because we got scared, because we found excuses, because maybe we found comfort in this inactivity, because this, that. However the time has come. The time when the numbness goes away and anger overflows. And it is up to us to find paths within this and every other unprecedented condition. So as to break the monotonous sound of the tv news bulletins, the sound of the sirens of the cop vehicles, replacing them with those of running to exhaustion, noises of racing feet, our breaths, our lives.
The day that is arising is ominous. So, it’s time to discover our capabilities and act, holding our anarchist consciousness as a compass.
Beyond blind obedience, the State infrastructure, the mechanisms of domination, the permit papers. Carving our own paths, away from the suggestions of the State and the technocratic system.
Time to remember that the fires that weren’t lit are our fault and that always when silence falls, we must become the flashbang that breaks it.
LET’S FIGHT WITH ALL OUR STRENGTH AGAINST THE AUTHORITY VIRUS
“DISEASE” IS BLIND OBEDIENCE
Anarchist Assembly Against the State Machine
