I Want To Believe.

      Wrote this little piece in 2017, film is informative, and my feelings expressed in the print are still the same.

Deep In Our Hearts:

        I have always maintained that we are all born anarchists, but the society we grow up in bids us bury those feelings and desires somewhere deep in our hearts. However we do carry them with us through out our lives, they are there ready to sprout and grow if we can create the right circumstances. These occasions rise in all parts of the world, sometimes in small groups that grow and then some fade under pressure from without. Other times it is a mass movement that can only be crushed by the military might of an authoritarian regime. No matter what, we should always remember deep in all our hearts there is a desire to live, with each other, in peace, in caring, sharing communities.

I Want to Believe!

I want to believe

All that is good is out there

Sleeping in hearts that live in dark valleys,

About to blossom like some magic woodland,

In spite of war, in spite of greed

The essence that is humanity struggling to be free.

All around death arrives in many guises,

Silent as the frost poverty kills,

The ruthless march of war

With every drum beat seeks God’s blessing,

While the God fearing kill the God fearing,

Slaughter in the name of the greater good.

I want to believe

All that is good is out there

Sleeping in the hearts that live in dark valleys

About to blossom like some magic woodland,

Not just as the dream of poets.

 

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Barcelona 1936-37.

       After Franco stuck is vicious teeth into Spain in 1939, his regime went all out to portray what had been happening in Spain from 1936-39 as an era of brutal violence, of murderous gunmen roaming uncontrolled, terrorising all decent people. Attempting to make sure that the real story should never be told. Though real history tells a different story than that of the Franco regime's distorted version. And now more evidence of the true nature of what was actually going on, especially in Barcelona has emerged.

This from Anarchist News:

From Roar Magazine
     Re-discovered after 80 years, the photographic legacy of the CNT which brings the libertarian revolution in Barcelona back to life, is now exhibited for the first time. This post was originally published by eldiario.es. Text by Pol Pareja. Translation from Spanish by Andrew Hakes.
      It was a Barcelona where taxis were prohibited, waiters and shoe shiners did not accept tips, hats were frowned upon, and the notes of The International rang out from every corner. A city where approximately 70 percent of the businesses were collectivized, with their offices occupied by workers and militiamen. Anarchist Barcelona, a unique libertarian experiment in Europe which had its decisive moment between July 1936 and May 1937, has been the subject of various studies and textbooks. However, the studies and textbooks of this exceptional period have been lacking the graphic history which had been presumed lost.

 Headquarters of the CNT-FAI regional committee, located on the current Via Laietana (then known as Via Durruti). Author unknown

 Posterists of the CNT-FAI in Barcelona. Pérez de Rozas

       The exposition Gràfíca anarquista, fotografia i revolució social (1936-1939) puts to rest this anomaly and offers an interesting testimonial to this period where Barcelona was transformed into the first large city where workers assumed total control of a good part of business and industry.
          The exhibition offers a journey through the photographic collection of the Office of Information and Propaganda, created by the CNT-FAI in Barcelona during the Civil War with the intent of spreading revolutionary ideology in the face of fascism’s advance in Europe. One can see in the exhibition dozens of images of well-known photographers, such as Katy Horna, Pérez de Rozas, Antoni Campañá and David Marco, among others. Also on display are anarchist publications of the era, postcards, credentials and CNT documents like the Militant Manual (Manual del militante).
       Coming from a propaganda office, the images lend to a benevolent vision of the city during those months. In contrast to the wretched image that Francoism tried to establish of to the libertarian revolution — placing emphasis on the burning of churches, summary executions and the existence of gunman roaming the city at their leisure — the exposition shows a more favorable side of anarchism.

 Anarchist militia in Barcelona. Antoni Campañà

There are photos of children playing in the Palace of Pedralbes’ pool, which was converted into a children’s school in 1936. There are also photos of the popular university established in the modernist Casa Golferichs and images of collectivized businesses functioning at full capacity. In many snapshots the primary focus is humble workers posing in the very same offices where only months ago their bosses sat. Portraits of militants and snapshots of bullet-ridden churches and church bells prepared for smelting round-out the exhibition.
      “The exposition tries to dismantle the image of anarchism constructed by the bourgeoisie over the years,” says Andrés Antebi, one of the commissioners of the exposition. “The propaganda office of the CNT focused on dismantling the stigma of anarchism being roaming bandits and irrational violence.” The exhibition, which can be seen in the Arxiu Fotográfic de Barcelona, also offers an interesting vision over the agrarian collectivizations outside of the Catalan capital, photographed by Carlos Pérez de Rozas and his son for the weekly periodical ¡¡Campo!!, demonstrating that the illustrious dynasty of photographers worked for all sides in spite of their conservative ideology.

 Two militia reading the anarchist newspaper “Solidaridad Obrera.” Author unknown

The photos’ long journey through Europe

        The delay in presenting such an exposition in Barcelona was created by — among various factors — the long journey the CNT’s photographic exposition took around Europe. In January 1939, before the eminent arrival of Francoist troops in Barcelona, those in charge of the CNT-FIA’s propaganda placed their section’s graphics in 43 wood boxes designed to transport Mauser rifles. The revolutionaries had signed an accord with the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam that had the Institute promise to preserve the memory of the union. The images were loaded onto a train and sent to the Dutch capital.

 It is estimated that between 70 and 80 percent of the companies in Barcelona were collectivized. Pérez de Rozas

On the way to Amsterdam, the transport halted in Paris. With the threat of a German invasion looming over the Netherlands, the boxes changed course and finally arrived in the United Kingdom. They were first in London (where some archives were lost during the bombings) and later located in Oxford. When the conflict ended, they were finally transferred to Amsterdam. When the collection arrived there, a legal battle erupted between the representatives of the now exiled-CNT and the International Institute of Social History, who did not acknowledge the anarchist union’s representatives outside of Spain.

 The exhibition also shows agricultural collectivizations in other parts of Catalonia. Pérez de Rozas

       The exhibition also shows agricultural collectivizations in other parts of Catalonia. Pérez de Rozas After 80 years, an agreement was reached between the two parties which recognized the CNT as owners of the collection, with the exception that the collection stays in the Netherlands at the International Institute of Social History, given its great importance as the most important institute of workers’ history in the world. The process of cataloging and organizing a large part of the archives started without the lost office of propaganda’s photographic collection. Thirty more years would have to pass before the photos were discovered in 2016. “Until this date they were sealed, they couldn’t be examined and virtually no one knew they existed,” the commissioner said. After a journey of more than 80 years, the photographs have returned to Barcelona.

  Anarchist militia in the Catalan capital. Antoni Campaña

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk