Belarus.

       We should continually highlight mass protests across the world, in an attempt show that people across the world are rising against the injustice and inequality that is the norm in this world, and against the authoritarian attitudes of all states across the globe. The authoritarianism is all a matter of degree, some more brutal than others, but the aim is the same, to keep wealth, power and privilege where they are, in the hands of a few pampered parasites. Brutality is the inherent tool of all states, to be brought out when ever it feels threatened by its own people or an external rival to its power.
        From Chile to France, from Peru to Mexico, Bolivia to Slovenia, the anger is rising and the streets are becoming the political arena, we should all be organising to join them, the streets are where we will eventually win, not in the marble halls of power, enter there and you play their game to their rules.
     Some extracts from AMW:

Situation in Belarus: Anarchist Perspective Briefly
       Finally, we face the outrage of Belarusian people in the streets. The increase of resistance is enormous. Many people say that such an uprising was never seen before during the rule of Alexander Lukashenko. These three nights, probably all the world has seen crowds of people giving fight to the police special forces, using barricades, burning tires and Molotovs.
      The police (or “militia” in Soviet-fashioned Belarus) reacts with great violence. Many people got seriously injured and there is one confirmed killed protester.
        There is also the call for the General Strike issued by the opposition. How successful it will be is yet to be seen. But there are first confirmed reports of strikes at several State-owned enterprises today (August 12).
        As it often happens in Eastern Europe, it was elections and electoral fraud that served as the starter for people’s unrest. However, deeper roots of the situation are long autocratic rule of the president, poverty, lack of prospects and opportunities. A big role in the current revolt is also played also by the inhuman policy of the government during the Coronavirus epidemic. Authorities decided to simply ignore it and made several scandalous statements. This ended up with a wave of infection and also a huge grassroots organizing of the society against the danger of the virus.------

       ------In this political landscape, anarchists are more visible than in Ukraine or Russia. In oppositional circles, they have the reputation of quite “hardcore” enemies of the regime who suffered very strong repressions, which is true, and also are always in the frontline of the resistance. The reverse of this image is that anarchists are seen more as eternal fighters, which can be a sort of “ram” of the changes, but then are supposed to give way to more conventional politicians.-----

-----From riot to revolution
        Today the whole protest movement shows a very simplistic demand: resign of Lukashenko and new “honest” elections. It helps to maintain the superficial unity of the protesters. But surely, this situation cannot last long.
       The specific of Belarus is state-ownership of the huge part of the economy. It is the basement for extracting wealth by state bureaucracy and capitalists close to the ruling clique.
     It is highly predictable that once either pro-Western or pro-Russian politicians are in power they’ll try to launch large-scale privatization and transformation this merely State-capitalism into the one ruled by external actors, i.e, international monetary organizations and Russian business-elites.
       In this context, the program and the call of revolutionary forces should be both clearly anti-authoritarian (Lukashenko MUST go) and also socially-concerned. We need to counter the ghost of privatization by promoting the turning of state-owned enterprises into municipal and collectively-ran ones, decentralization and democratization of different sphere of social life: self-defense, healthcare, education. At the same time, all social obligations for free access to different services monopolized by the state today should be promoted and developed.
       To be short: if anarchists of Belarus will be able to play key and organizing roles in the development of the popular uprising (while all opposition leaders are clearly confused now), then they have several prospects. As a minimum, to present actively the anarchist movement and its message, to make it known broadly within the population. As a medium goal, to become significant political actors, which will influence the social development of the new Belarus in terms mentioned in the previous paragraph, to take a foothold in infrastructure, media-sphere and society for rapid further political development. As a maximum… who knows our real limits?

Read the full article HERE:

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The Anarchists Have Been Right All Along.

        Anarchist have been consistent in their belief that, if you seek freedom and justice for all, you can't modify the state and/or capitalism, you have to destroy them both. However, this hasn't exactly went down wholeheartedly among the general population. One reason could be that it is difficult to go out and take on the state when your fridge is full, you're booked for a nice holiday abroad. and the "far right" hasn't been rampant on the streets. Now the situation has shifted, lots of people have empty fridges, can't afford any holidays, and the far right is openly on the march, trying to kick the shit out of all those who dare to be different. It is obvious that the so called "left parties" have failed miserably in bringing about a fair and just society, they haven't even been able to defend the few perks that have been won through centuries of struggle, they have presided over the social fabric of society being wiped away before our very eyes, while they displayed their complete impotence.

      We have to shout our ideas louder than ever, people are looking for answers, and if our ideas are not on the table, they wont be picked up. Encouragingly though, our ideas are being picked up, more and more people now realise that the "left parties" as an opposition, have been the problem, and allowed the "far right" to flourish, allowed neo-liberalism to run rampant, and allowed our standard of living to be whittled away.  Politics today, must be moved away from the party political system, moved away from the marble halls, party leaders, presidents, prime ministers, must be ignored, politics must move onto the streets and into the communities. 

      Our struggles can no longer be confined to the local or national level, our enemy is a global enemy, and so we must see a world without borders. Wherever the people enter into open rebellion against the state and/or its bed partner, capitalism, we must display bold and virulent open solidarity with them. Their struggle is our struggle. I can hear the whisper that is becoming a roar, "The anarchist have been right all along." 

 And from It's Going Down:

     Electoral politics feeds off of grassroots social movements and struggles, not into them.

       As Scott Jay wrote:

[E]lectoral activism feeds into electoral activism. It relies on itself to further itself. It attracts people who are attracted to electoral politics and generally does not attract people engaging in class struggle. It does not need, nor does it feed class struggle, except to the extent that it might be able to take advantage of the sacrifices of militants in order to declare itself a proper representative of a social movement it did not create.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk