Saint-Imier 2023: The International Anarchist Meetings
From Umanità Nova n.24 of 3rd Sept 2023: https://umanitanova.org/vacanze-intelligenti-gli-incontri-internazionali-dellanarchismo/
This summer, one of the most important international anarchist meetings of recent years, the Rencontres Internationales Antiautoritaires (RIA) “Anarchy 2023”, took place in Saint-Imier (Switzerland), from 19 to 23 July. Thousands of people from different continents participated, although a significant part came from French and German-speaking Europe. As the Italian Anarchist Federation – FAI, we have taken part in the meeting’s organizational process since 2020, and we attended with a large delegation, actively contributing by proposing debates, setting up an exhibition and holding a stand of Umanità Nova and Zero in Condotta editions in the book fair.
This meeting celebrated the 150 years plus one (as the event was postponed due to the pandemic) from the congress that was held in this small village in the Bernese Jura on 15 and 16 September 1872, which is historically considered as the birth act of the organized anarchist movement. Then, for the first time, the anti-authoritarian tendency of the workers’ and revolutionary movement collectively defined its principles. Around the matter of seizing political power there was a deep fracture within the Association Internationale des Travailleurs (AIT-IWA), better known as the First International. At the Congress held in The Hague from 2 to 7 September 1872, Karl Marx took advantage of the outlawing of the French IWA section – the largest – that followed the Paris Commune, to transform the national sections of the International into parties targeting electoral participation. The Congress of Saint-Imier was the consequence of this fracture, and in the declaration that: “The destruction of all political power is the first duty of the proletariat” it summarized the position of the anti-authoritarian IWA Jurassian, Italian, Spanish, French and American sections. On that occasion, they started an organizational experience in continuity with the internationalist pathway that had just been split up.
However, we did not had a celebratory meeting: indeed, there was only one conference of historical study on the Congress of 1872. From the beginning, in fact, centrality has been given to the actuality of anarchist practices and ideas. It was a clear choice of the organizing committee, formed in 2020 by exponents of the local anarchist movement, with the participation of the French-speaking Anarchist Federation and the Italian Anarchist Federation.
More than 400 debates, presentations, conferences and workshops were held, plus dozens of film screenings, and then concerts, theatrical performances, exhibitions and a book fair that hosted over 100 exhibitors. The activities, including in the streets and squares, took place in 12 different spaces spread throughout the village, which has just over 5000 inhabitants. Several collectives of mobile kitchens set up two large installations and prepared breakfast, lunch and dinner for the participants: over 5000 meals were distributed on Saturday evening alone.
Already in 2012 a similar meeting was held in Saint-Imier, with about 4000 participants. On that occasion, non-European presences were certainly more massive and representative, especially from Latin America. The role of organizations, federations, trade unions, international networks and anarchist groups was also greater. Conversely, this time several parts of the organized anarchist movement were not formally attending, which left more room for spontaneity and individual participation. This probably made the 2023 meeting less representative of the plural reality of the globally organized anarchist movement. Clearly in 2012 there was also a different context marked by movements that, on the shores of the Mediterranean as well as on the other side of the Atlantic, saw the participation of the anarchist movement, although in different ways.
However, it was also partly a choice of the organizing committee, which preferred to open the meeting as much as possible to spontaneous participation. In fact, anyone could propose debates and activities through an online platform, and not even a presentation was scheduled directly by the organizing committee, which acted only as a filter and infrastructure. Clearly, this formula has also limitations. In the weeks leading up to the RIAs, there was harsh criticism of the presence of speakers closer to “liberal” or “conspiracy” positions. The program was therefore revised, and some initiatives whose contents clearly stood far away from the anarchist movement were canceled. The problem, however, is not technical, but political. The lack of participation by organizations capable of making collective contributions to the debate was clearly perceived in the fragility of the political base of the event itself.
In any case, those who have read the program of “Anarchy 2023” can identify the matters around which the activity of the anarchist movement develops today, central themes in the current reality: war, the resurgence of authoritarian regimes and military dictatorships, the return of fascism in various forms, the climate, trade union activity, capitalist exploitation, feminist and queer struggles, racist and border closure policies. These topics were all covered in debates, workshops and conferences from different points of view. Probably the most interesting initiatives were the presentations of the realities most distant from the European context in which the meeting took place. This was the case with the activities proposed by the groups of Brazil, Chile, Peru, Philippines, Iran, Turkey, which have brought a significant contribution from new experiences and perspectives, allowing us to broaden our gaze, and try to get rid of a Eurocentric vision.
As the Italian Anarchist Federation we have provided specific contributions on the themes of antimilitarism and antifascism. Individual groups and federated individuals also promoted and participated in various presentations and conferences. In addition FAI, together with Slovenia and Croatia FAO of Greece APO, all IFA federations active along the bloodiest European borders, displayed a banner against ‘Fortress Europe’. The anti-militarist workshops were held in three separate days, in three different places. On Thursday 20th the first meeting took place in the main hall, almost full; on that occasion our positions on the concept of anarchist antimilitarism and its practices, and on the war in Eastern Europe, were exposed, including examples of struggles in which we are engaged, from the No Base Movement in Pisa to the general strikes against the war organized by grassroots syndicalism. In the following two days, the meetings took place in less official premises and this allowed greater interaction and comparison with comrades from different countries on the practices of struggle. There were also moments of vivid discussion, with critical interventions that opened the debate on the different positions existing on the situation in Ukraine. However, this cycle of initiatives has had a concrete outcome. From the meeting with individuals and anti-militarist groups from different parts of the world, the idea of a common international initiative to be held in November was launched.
On fascism, we have tried to bring a specific contribution to feed the debate at the international level, trying to define the characteristics of the historical fascist regime in Italy, and the characteristics of the fascist government that sits today in Rome. It was pointed out that, in matters of war, exploitation of the working class, authoritarianism and racism, the current government does nothing but following the path already traced by previous governments. It instead distinguishes itself with their attacks on women and non-binary subjectivities, in an attempt to re-consolidate patriarchal domination. Recalling the commitment of the anarchist movement in the struggle against fascism during the last century, the importance of maintaining a perspective of radical social transformation was stressed, because only social revolution can stop fascism. The specificity of the Italian situation raised great interest and, at the end of the presentation, an interesting and lively debate was opened in a crowded room, with questions and exchanges on the respective experiences of struggle in different countries.
In addition to the many positive things, however, we have witnessed on some occasions the implementation of practices that do not conform to our ethics, as well as the dissemination of messages that seem incompatible with the values and principles that the anarchist movement has been carrying out for 150 years. If we expose these criticisms it is not to polemize with this or that group, but because we think that we cannot silence the problems that the international anarchist movement must face if it wants to grow before the challenges that await us.
We refer to the attitude of some individuals and groups who have tried to use the meeting to impose their own political line, even violently, identifying some historical organizations of the anarchist movement as nothing less than the “enemy”. The first case was that of groups that support the so-called “anti-authoritarian fighters” who enlisted in the Ukrainian state army. While we consider this option to be incompatible with our anarchist principles and our anti-militarist practices, we have never opposed their presence, in the spirit of the openness and pluralism that characterized this edition of the RIA.
The serious matter is not that these groups have tried to obtain maximum visibility, but that they have done so in a way that is incompatible with what we consider to be an anarchist method. These groups organized some workshops and a conference in the main hall. In these meetings, anyone who tried to express criticism or simply different opinions was systematically denied to speak and silenced. In the rare cases in which the floor was open to someone who expressed a vision different from that of the organizers, they interrupted from the “table”, therefore from a position of power, the unwelcome interventions on the pretext that they were “off topic”. Those who have attempted to raise their voices to protest against these methods have been insulted, delegitimized and threatened even physically. Comrades who tried to speak in the Saturday afternoon debate were surrounded by individuals who were part of a sort of “security service”, which had no restraint in trashing posters from the hands of some pacifist comrades who had exposed them. This seems serious misbehavior to us, not only because violently censoring debates is an authoritarian practice, but also because it meant the privatization of a space that has been collectively conquered by those who have organized the RIAs in recent years. It is also unacceptable that members of these groups publicly repeated lies against the anarchist organizations that spoke out against the war, even accusing us of ‘being subject to Putin’s propaganda’. Before these calumnies and falsehoods, it suffices to refer to the document “For a new anarchist manifesto against war” which clearly expresses the FAI position https://www.federazioneanarchica.org/archivio/archivio_2022/20220722manifestonowar_en.html which we widely disseminated in hundreds of copies in Saint-Imier. Then, we would like to clearly state that censorship, as well as the systematic denigration and delegitimization of adversaries, are authoritarian practices that must have no place in the anarchist movement.
Finally, unidentified individuals repeatedly assaulted physically the Francophone FA banquet, on the pretext of the presence of some books that some considered to be “Islamophobic”, tearing up and burning these books, attacking individual comrades, trying to organise a wider protest against the FA as such, allegedly accused of “racism”. While the debates taking place in France on these complicated problems cannot be addressed exhaustively in these few lines, we would like to emphasize that no political criticism can be expressed in forms reminiscent of the methods of the worst authoritarian regimes we fight. In diffusing the communiqué of solidarity with the FA signed by several IFA federations https://www.federazioneanarchica.org/archivio/archivio_2023/20230808solidarieta.html we must emphasize that these attacks have systematically taken place against the historical organizations of the anarchist movement. In some of these tense situations, moreover, there has unfortunately been a lack of mediation by the working group responsible for this function.
We believe that the Saint-Imier meeting, as well as the Balkan Anarchist Bookfair held in Ljubljana at the beginning of July, were of crucial importance for our movement, an exceptional opportunity for exchange, revival and clarification to continue our internationalist, anti-militarist and revolutionary struggle, in a complex phase like the one we are going through. It is also important to emphasize the limitations of these events and above all to reject dogmatic and sectarian practices. Although these events saw the participation of only a part of the movement, it is clear that the topicality of the issues addressed, the liveliness of the debate, the plurality of positions is a sign of a dynamism that is difficult to find in other revolutionary currents. Even in a very difficult global context, the anarchist movement still has a significant influence and can play a central role; It is up to us to show the crucial contribution it can make as a revolutionary practice to the cause of the oppressed and exploited classes around the world.
FAI International Relations Commission
