OFFICIAL N-AM STATEMENT: January 2021
On January 7th, various groups and individuals connected with the National-Anarchist Movement were permanently removed from Facebook after being wrongly connected to the events in Washington the previous day. Ironically, several hours earlier many leading activists had attacked the Trump supporters who stormed the US Capitol building on their personal timelines. As a result of this political decision, not to mention the Movement's wrongful vilification in certain sections of the media, the N-AM would like to publicly distance outselves from all groups and individuals that were involved in this ridiculous protest.
In 2016 the N-AM expelled two individuals for promoting Donald Trump and trying to connect the group to the so-called Alt-Right. The individuals concerned were Craig Fitzgerald and Gabriel Brown. The N-AM remains strongly opposed to all Right-wing organisations of this kind and openly rejects all supporters of Donald Trump and, most notably, the Proud Boys, QAnon, the Three Percenters, Stop the Steal and all forms of racial hatred, white supremacism, fascism and neo-nazism.
Thursday 7 January 2021
Tuesday 3 March 2020
Tuesday 3 July 2018
SPEECHES FROM THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL N-AM CONFERENCE, 2018
A selection of videos from the Second International N-AM Conference that was held in East Sussex, England, on the weekend of 23-24 June, 2018, are now available. Click here to be taken to the page.
SCENES FROM THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL N-AM CONFERENCE, 2018
Here are a few photographs from what was a very memorable and successful event held at a beautiful medieval pub in a tiny village at the heart of the English countryside. The photographs show images from the various speakers and attendees at the conference, as well as the beautiful farm where a number of us camped for several days. Fascinating talks, brilliant company, fine mead, baked sausages and potatoes and a few friendly animals thrown in for good measure. A perfect weekend in every way.
Monday 2 July 2018
CASE CLOSED
by Troy Southgate
June 28, 2018
June 28, 2018
I have finally received the proof I need to completely destroy the lie that I am, or have ever been, a 'neo-nazi,' 'neo-fascist' or 'racist'. The American academic, Ryan Shaffer, was kind enough to send me a copy of his Palgrave Macmillan book on post-war British Fascism, which includes a discussion of the 1980s National Front (NF) of which I was part some thirty years ago and more. Although the book is now priced in the region of £80 to £100 and aimed chiefly at university libraries, I have photographed some of the pages that refer to me directly. Page 130, for example, reveals that I was openly talking about "Nazi-type filth" as early as the mid-1980s when I first joined the organisation on account of its radical economic policies and that on account of "praising blacks" our group was being denounced as "communist" by the fascists that had been purged from our ranks. On Page 136, which deals with 1988, you can see that I was highlighting our links "with peoples of different races" and, on Page 137, promoting the political, social and economic ideas of Qathafi's Green Book. At the foot of Page 180 I am mentioned as being among the founders of the International Third Position (ITP) and, in the final sentence of Page 181 - continuing onto Page 182 - eventually condemning the ITP for being "fascist at its very core". In fact it was me who engineered a major split in their ranks and led 75% of the membership into the newly-formed English Nationalist Movement (ENM) in September 1992. The ENM itself was staunchly anti-fascist and promoted William Cobbett, Robert Owen, William Morris, Bob Blatchford and Otto Strasser. At the very bottom of Page 182 I am seen attacking Italian fascist Roberto Fiore for his notorious capitalist business activities. Contemporary National-Anarchism also gets a mention on Page 183, but not in the context of being 'fascistic' or 'neo-nazi'.
Finally, Ryan's book - and remember that it has been issued by one of the largest publishers in the world - seems very objective indeed and I am pleased to be able to present this information as a way of undermining the disgusting lies that have been said about me over the last four decades. I was, and shall remain, an anti-fascist.
Sunday 1 July 2018
Monday 23 October 2017
IF AT FIRST YOU DO NOT SUCCEED, THEN TRY, TRY AND TRY AGAIN
If at First You Do Not Succeed, Then Try, Try and Try Again
by Troy Southgate
Two months ago, I was attacked by Alexander Reid Ross, a notoriously poisonous individual who can only be described as a purveyor of systematic misinformation. I posted a reply to Ross on August 20th this year, but not content with having delivered his spurious opening salvo this thoroughly loathsome and dishonest creature has since assembled a second collection of unfounded insinuations.
I shall deal with his lies in turn:
1. The fact that I responded to his first attack "may mean that I pushed all the right buttons". Since when did attempting to set the record straight amount to an admission of guilt? Does the fact that Ross has now replied to me indicate that I "pushed all the right buttons", too?
2. Ross claims that I "joined one of England’s fascist parties, the National Front, in the mid-1980s." However, by this time the NF was already in the process of expelling the fascist elements that had worked their way into the organisation during the first two decades of its existence and this is demonstrated by those NF publications that called for an end to racism and which denounced fascism and neo-Nazism on a regular basis. Indeed, as a result of this radical change in direction the NF was denounced by those it had purged as a party of 'nigger-lovers'.
3. It is claimed that I "joined the NF due to the same concentrated effort that he now denies as existing at all." This relates to the fact that I was a skinhead at the time I first became involved with nationalist politics, but of course, he completely neglects to mention that I was heavily into Ska and Reggae music and was not the kind of skinhead who enjoyed sieg-heiling out of car windows through Brixton. Ross also fails to mention that the NF expelled racist skinheads associated with the Blood & Honour movement and set up a musical alternative that was devoid of fascism and neo-Nazism. Success was limited, which is why the NF then tried to recruit from Folk circles. Attempting to recruit skinheads, however, should not imply that the NF I belonged to was interested in recruiting Nazi boneheads. Or at least not without trying to educate them and turn them away from such views altogether. Skinhead subculture, remember, even that which is anti-fascist, is nonetheless viewed as a bastion of patriotism and that is what the NF was trying to cultivate. Just as the communists had made an attempt to recruit English youth by way of the punk genre in the late-1970s.
4. Laughably, Ross tells us that "the NF’s economic program, such as it has been over the decades, is profoundly racist. Ranging from syncretic notions of distributism to a contradictory hatred of the welfare state that rests on a cynical idealization of self-sufficiency, the economic ideas bandied about in the English fascist movement maintain the incessant drone of xenophobia and Islamophobia." Oh dear. He clearly knows nothing whatsoever about the Distributist League's frequent debates with Mosley's Blackshirts during the 1930s, or the fact that when I joined the NF it was a revolutionary organisation that advocated the overthrow of the State itself. Take away emotive words like 'profoundly', 'syncretic', 'contradictory', 'hatred', 'idealization', 'bandied', 'fascist', incessant', 'drone', 'xenophobia' and 'Islamophobia' and there is very little of substance. This, you see, is precisely how this obnoxious little toerag likes to operate.
5. The next scurrilous allegation is that "by the mid-1980s when Southgate joined, everyone in England understood that the NF was linked to mass violence, beatings, and even murders, especially of South Asian and Caribbean immigrants, LGBT folks, and leftists." Well, given that the Zionist media had fed that line to them for many years it is hardly surprising, but I never once saw any evidence of violence among the NF that had purged the reactionaries from its ranks. In fact Ross has openly defended the very groups that use violence and intimidation against their enemies. He is not merely a liar, therefore, but a hypocrite.
6. Another incredibly wild claim is that the "NF’s pathetic numbers at the polls" meant that the political soldier faction (of which I was part) "became more associated with [...] neo-folk and industrial music." Interesting, given that Neofolk only became popular among nationalist groups during the late-1990s when the NF I had been involved with - and, consequently, left in 1989 - had been dead for almost a decade. This, unfortunately, is the pitiful level of scholarship that we get from a man, who recently published a very inaccurate and badly-researched book on 'fascism'.
7. Ross says that "Southgate’s own brand of supposedly 'anti-racist' ideology is also informed by the ideology of Alexander Dugin" and that, unsurprisingly, is also patently untrue. I have met Dugin on two occasions and he spoke at one of my meetings in London, but whilst I initially liked the idea of a Eurasian bulwark against Anglo-American imperialism I soon found his thinly-disguised chauvinism and centralist proclivities unacceptable. To say that my anti-racism has ever been "informed" by Dugin is absolutely hilarious and I am sure that even my Russian counterpart would agree. We never even discussed race at all. It is, of course, simply another exercise in guilt-by-association. The fact that I have since criticised Dugin on numerous occasions over the course of the last ten years obviously counts for nothing. I think that's called being economical with the truth.
8. One thing that I find curious is the manner in which Ross tries to ingratiate himself with more informed researchers of fascism like Anton Shekhovtsov, Roger Griffin, Tamir Bar-On and Graham Macklin, all four of whom have corresponded with me in respectful, cordial terms. One of these men also found the first attack on me by Ross to be perfectly ridiculous, although I prefer to keep our academically inferior friend guessing as to who it might be.
9. Ross then says that "Southgate, himself, has disavowed the Alt Right on the basis of their attachment to Trump". That, and that alone? Really?! Try to pay attention, Ross, there's a good chap.
10. Elsewhere, Ross alleges that "Southgate set up the 'New Right' (NR) group in England in the mid-2000s, cloaking his ideology in some antiracist and antifascist rhetoric in attempts to disseminate in a more-or-less antiracist context." Apart from the confusingly repetitive nature of this rather bizarre statement, the New Right was established as a way for me to feed National-Anarchist ideas into the British Far Right. The same kind of entryism, if you will, that Ross only imagines takes place in relation to the Left. Furthermore, to connect me with figures such as Gaston Bergery and Alexandre Marc is also very strange given that I have never made reference to either of them in over thirty years of political involvement.
9. Ross then says that "Southgate, himself, has disavowed the Alt Right on the basis of their attachment to Trump". That, and that alone? Really?! Try to pay attention, Ross, there's a good chap.
10. Elsewhere, Ross alleges that "Southgate set up the 'New Right' (NR) group in England in the mid-2000s, cloaking his ideology in some antiracist and antifascist rhetoric in attempts to disseminate in a more-or-less antiracist context." Apart from the confusingly repetitive nature of this rather bizarre statement, the New Right was established as a way for me to feed National-Anarchist ideas into the British Far Right. The same kind of entryism, if you will, that Ross only imagines takes place in relation to the Left. Furthermore, to connect me with figures such as Gaston Bergery and Alexandre Marc is also very strange given that I have never made reference to either of them in over thirty years of political involvement.
11. The sentence "Perhaps because he could find no true fault with my article, he retreats to his critiques of my book" is pure comedy gold. The fact is, I utterly destroyed him on both counts and it is impossible to decide which of the two amounts to the biggest pile of horseshit. I'll let you know if I do eventually make my mind up, although it's like trying to work out the difference between a donkey and a mule.
12. He then bemoans the fact that I published an article on the 'blood and soil' ideas of Richard Walther Darrè, but neglects to mention that this same individual was - as Anna Bramwell points out admirably - perhaps the greatest influence on the Greens. Are they Nazis, too?
13. Ross notes that the National Revolutionary Faction (NRF), a precursor of National-Anarchism, tried to create a 'synthesis' between ideas on either side of the political spectrum. The fact that the article in which I made this claim (Transcending the Beyond) was itself dealing with having rejected third positionism for a complete departure from either side appears to have gone right over his head.
14. Another odd remark is that "Southgate claims that his movement repudiates Darwin" and yet I went on to publish an article by someone else who endorsed it. However, the reality is that whilst I dismissed the theory of evolution during my speech on Oswald Spengler at the recent National-Anarchist Movement (N-AM) conference in Madrid, it remains a personal opinion and not something that the N-AM itself necessarily subscribes to. Ross tries to infer that "[Southgate] surely advocates an idea of Natural Order that seeks an evolution of the 'folk' through the refutation of multiculturalism and exclusion of gender and sexual diversity". Actually, no. We welcome into our ranks not just all races and religions, but atheists and people with differing notions of sexuality.
15. Strangely enough, I totally concur with the final sentence in this incredible litany of falsehood: "Enough with the games and tricks. Let’s have honesty and clarity in political discourse." Not that I expect Ross to take his own advice.
Sunday 20 August 2017
ALEXANDER REID ROSS AND THE POLITICS OF DISTORTION
Alexander Reid Ross and the Politics of Distortion
by Troy Southgate
August 20th, 2017
This article is just the latest example of how Alexander Reid Ross, one of
the rising stars in the world of professional bullshit, sets out to vilify
everyone through guilt-by-association. In actual fact, this is his entire modus
operandi and it is dangerous in the sense that it seeks to facilitate a type of
academic 'justification' for those making an attempt to demonise
National-Anarchism through Wikipedia and various other forms of controlled
media. In other words, when people such as Ross produce a book or an article,
the work in question is then cited by others as a means of adding some kind of
'intellectual' gloss to the overall strategy of ideological misrepresentation
in general. Ross wants people to believe that there is a wide-ranging fascist
conspiracy to both infiltrate and take over Anarchist groups and certain music
circles. This is completely untrue. Groups such as the National Front (NF),
mentioned in this article, certainly made an attempt to seize control of
skinhead subculture back in the early-1980s, which is precisely how - as a
teenage Labour voter - I found my way into the organisation after buying one of
the group's newspapers outside a Bad Manners concert and finding myself
impressed with its stance on alternative economics, but I was never a racist
nor a fascist because at that time the organisation itself was already in the
process of expelling such elements from its ranks and adopting what were
generally considered to be 'left-wing' ideas and strategies. This included the
regular promotion of anti-racism and anti-fascism in the pages of its
literature, for which I still have a mountain of evidence sitting on my
bookshelves. Furthermore, in 1986 those who had been expelled formed their own
version of the 'National Front' (more properly known as the 'Flag' faction) and
began labelling us 'nigger-lovers'.
Meanwhile, the ever-deceitful and politically-motivated Ross deliberately
tries to conceal the incontrovertible fact that National-Anarchism is something
which, in relation to myself, at least, arrived by way of the late Richard Hunt
and Alternative Green magazine. Richard, who was formerly editor of Green
Anarchist, fell out with his former allies after defending patriarchal
societies and making the mistake of supporting the Iraq War. But Richard
himself was never actually Right-wing and had merely thought his way out of the
leftist straight-jacket in the way that Bob Black and various other Anarchists
have. Indeed, Richard was not afraid to work alongside those of us who were
English nationalists and who were genuinely opposed to fascism and racism. In fact,
it was Richard who introduced me to Anarchist ideas for the first time, so
there was no conspiracy to infiltrate and subvert the Left from people like
myself at all and I certainly never set out to recruit him in accordance with
the imagined designs of a wicked nationalist plot.
Moving on, the fact that I have mentioned entryism as a viable tactic in the
past - even praising the tactics used by Derek Hatton's Trotskyist group,
Militant, during the 1980s - is used by Ross to provide incriminating
'evidence' for my allegedly secret desire to inject fascist ideas into the
ranks of Anarchism. Ironically, however, in the late-1990s I was accused by
Nick Griffin of "trying to cherry-pick from the British National
Party" and he was right. I actively set out to bring nationalists across
to Anarchist ideas and not vice versa. I am also prepared to admit, quite
openly, that I even use Strasserism as a 'bridge' in order to bring people over
from Hitlerism to Anarchism. So again, it's a one-way street and all the
traffic is moving in a single direction. In fact, if you look very carefully
you can probably see the fading Berlin sunset in the rear-view mirror. More
seriously, one thing we National-Anarchists always insist on, is that anyone
who joins us is Anarchist. That is the distinguishing feature of our ideology
and the first port of call for anyone wishing to get involved. Anarchism must
come first, everything else is secondary. We therefore reject fascism and neo-Nazism
completely and always have. I do not expect Ross and his impressionable friends
to discuss the hard-line stance that we take against such people or the manner
in which we have previously expelled them from our ranks.
One further point: I never set out to infiltrate the Neofolk scene, I was
merely invited to join an existing group (HERR) that had already released its
first album and that same person happens to be left-wing. HERR itself has never
promoted a political agenda in any way, shape or form and its members have
always had a wide range of differing views and opinions and none of them are
even remotely 'fascistic'.
Several months ago, Ross published a book, entitled Against the Fascist
Creep, in which he distorts my ideas yet again. Having seen a pdf of this text,
I will now deal with some of the lies and insinuations that appear in relation
to me personally:
1. Ross claims that I served an eighteen-month prison sentence for assault
in 1988, which is correct, but what he neglects to mention is that myself and
10-15 others were attacked by violent 'anti-fascists' on Brighton seafront
during the non-political skinhead gathering that has taken place there since
the late-1960s. One individual, whom I did not know personally, given that
skinheads would travel there from all over the country, decided to approach a
left-wing bookstall at the town's annual Mayday gathering and complain that
they were promoting the Irish Republican Army (IRA). As I watched the debate
become increasingly heated, the stallholders and around 200 of their friends
assumed that we were fascists - despite the fact that some of us were wearing
Trojan reggae shirts - and started throwing large stones from the beach and chasing
us along Madeira Drive. There was some roadworks along the seafront at the
time, so in self-defence I tore out one of the metal poles and threw it at the
crowd of people who were attacking us and it struck what later turned out to be
a Marxist lab technician on the top of the head. Consequently, I was arrested
by the police for Actual Bodily Harm (ABH) and Affray. The second charge is far
more serious, because it rests on the notion that people were actually fearing
for their lives, hence the harsh sentence that was delivered at Lewes Crown
Court nineteen months later. At the time, and despite the fact that I had
merely defended myself from a violent attack during which myself and a mutual
group of virtual strangers were outnumbered by almost fifteen to one, I was the
Regional Organiser of a very effective political unit in East Sussex that was
selling over 30 newspapers door-to-door every night, so this was a very
convenient way for the Establishment to remove me from the equation. In other
words, I was framed.
2. Ross says that I consequently spent a few 'uncomfortable years' in the
International Third Position (ITP), but neglects to mention that I left in
disgust after some of its members - most notably Fiore, Holland and Todd -
began promoting fascist ideas. That, as two statements from the time attest,
was the main reason I established the English Nationalist Movement (ENM) in
September 1992. Ross tells us the ENM was short-lived, although the fact that
it lasted until the end of the millennium possibly indicates that it wasn't too
short-lived by political standards and, besides, we ourselves decided to change
the name to the National Revolutionary Faction (NRF).
3. Ross says that Richard Hunt supported 'blood and soil', which is another
downright lie. Richard was always conscious of the fact that his association
with the ENM might cause others to assume that he also supported racial
separatism and this is why he openly rejected it in the pages of Alternative
Green. His own artwork even depicts love between people of different races and
he rejected separatism time and time again in the pages of the magazine itself.
In Issue 14, for example, published in the Spring of 1996, Richard's headline
was 'Loyalty to Place, Not to Race'. On Page 10 of the same publication, he
claims that racial separatism is disastrous for multi-racial societies and must
be stopped.
4. Ross claims I am promoting a 'third-position anarchism' when, in actual
fact, one of my more well-known essays is called 'Transcending the Beyond: From
Third Position to National-Anarchism' and makes an important distinction
between the two.
5. Ross tells us that I 'continue to see the individual locked in a
Darwinian struggle against multicultural society'. Rather curious, given that I
have always rejected the theory of evolution and also have no objection to
people living in multi-racial societies at all. So long as they respect the
right of others to live in a peaceful and non-coercive manner.
6. The one article by me that Ross cites in his bibliography is 'The Case
For National-Anarchist Entryism', which, again, is designed to imply that I am
on a mission to infiltrate Anarchism and worm my way into certain forms of
music.
Finally, individuals like Ross are not interested in the truth and we should
not be deceived into thinking that he has simply got his facts wrong, the man
has an agenda and that involves smearing us by any means necessary.
Tuesday 27 June 2017
ANTIFA AND ISIS - SAME, BUT DIFFERENT
by Welf Herfurth
When one travels there is a lot of time spent thinking while on long transits between cities and places. Personal things and also the odd political thought. And while I was on a bus traveling in Argentina, I saw a news clip about ISIS, who are currently marauding through the Middle East. Somehow their actions and belief system looked familiar. And then it came to me; they are just like the Anti-Fascist groups, also known as Antifa, that terrorise everybody they believe is a fascist in the western world.
Having had personal experience with these so called “defenders of democracy”, it is actually amazing the extent to which the tactics, rhetoric and belief system of these two groups are identical. So let’s have a closer look at these two groups and their actions.
The ISIS fighters believe, like Antifa, that they have the moral high ground when it comes what is right and what is wrong. And whatever is not right in their eyes has to be fought and destroyed. While the ISIS believes in a rather obscure interpretation of the Koran, Antifa believes in a rather obscure interpretation of democracy. Both groups are righteous and fanatical in upholding what they think is right. And whatever doesn’t fit in their dogmatic box has to be eliminated.
ISIS fights a brutal war against the non-believers, beheading people by the hundreds, enslaving and selling women, and killing others by the thousands. We all saw the clips where they themselves celebrate and promote those kinds of activities. Slogans like “Kill all infidels”, “Destroy Democracy”, etc., are well known to be spread by them. All in the name of Allah and his prophets.
Now Antifa might not kill people by the thousands, but I know many political activists that have been beaten and, yes, killed by Antifa activists. Even more notable are their threats, which are an indication of their fanaticism - threats of violence to, and the destruction of property of the people that they deem to be fascists. And all this they promote and celebrate in video clips that everybody can access on the web. Equally, you can have a look at the Antifa slogans like “Death to Nazis”, “Smash Fascists”, “Destroy Racism”, etc. While they are all only slogans, you might think, the truth is that they are not just slogans for Antifa activists but a call to action!
Just recently I received a photo from a comrade that shows a mannequin's head that was covered in red paint and had my name on it, send by the Antifa in Sydney. While this is a juvenile, and I think rather funny thing for Antifa to have done, it also indicates what I might expect should I meet them in person; they want to inflict as much bodily harm on me as possible. What's more, activists around the world are threatened every day by Antifa with violence and death threats. And these are not just threats, because I know they are actually carried out all too regularly in reality.
Just recently Antifa put up posters around the Sydney area which state that certain suburbs are “Racist Free Zones”, and that they are controlling the areas to make sure that this is so. One doesn’t have to imagine what would happen if a so-called Nazi fell into their hands... This action of claiming areas and declaring them Antifa-controlled zones is nothing new; it has been happening all over Europe and America since the 1970’s. Now, taking a look at Islamic State and their fighters, one can see that they are doing exactly the same thing, just on a bigger scale and with more brutality. The ISIS controlled areas in the Middle East are spreading, and anything and everything that doesn’t fit into their way of thinking is destroyed or killed. In principle, what ISIS and Antifa are promoting and practising is exactly the same! These are just two of the many similarities between the two groups. While the ISIS is a recent development, Antifa has been around for much longer. But both are intolerant and fanatical in their beliefs to a point where they do not hesitate to harm or even kill people, and destroy symbols and property that they deem to be against their faith. One might argue that ISIS is more dangerous and violent than Antifa; I argue that it not the scale that matters, but the thoughts and actions of these two groups.
Now, I know that the Antifa activists who read this believe that they are doing the world a favour by fighting racism and Nazis; just as the ISIS fighters believe that they are doing the right thing. So I feel rather sorry for them, because they are slaves to their dogmatic thinking and are, in my opinion at least, nothing but a cult. They are both a brainwashed and righteous people who claim to be against something, and both are very willing to put their twisted thoughts into action.
Think about it and act accordingly.
Saturday 24 June 2017
ECOLOGICAL SOCIETY & SUSTAINABLE NATIONAL-ANARCHIST COMMUNITIES
ECOLOGICAL SOCIETY &
SUSTAINABLE NATIONAL-ANARCHIST COMMUNITIES
BETTER PRINCIPLES MAKE BETTER COMMUNITIES
by
PIERCARLO BORMIDA
Delivered
at the first N-AM International Conference, Madrid, Sunday 18th June, 2017
I think
that personal experience, however small, is always a good start to change the
world around us. I was born in Southern Europe, in the Piedmont that was once
part of Savoy, and which was still the land of Celts and Ligurians. The Romans
managed to subdue the populations that lived in this region, but they could not
completely change their character and attitude. The strong bond with the earth
remained, although many centuries later they tried to destroy it with factories
and industrialization. And above all with television and its surrogate model of
man: a consumer slave of progress and economic well-being, faithful to
globalization. But this vision has begun to take a downturn, it is in the eyes
of everyone, otherwise we would not be here to talk about it. The tribal spirit
that keeps pulsing in our veins has arisen in some of us, perhaps still few,
but the fact is important in itself. After spending several years around the
world first and then in the city, I felt the need to change direction. Or rather,
to go home. Meanwhile, that house that once belonged to my ancestors had been
sold, so we, me and my partner, had to look for another one that would suit us.
We found it in the Piedmont Langhe, rooted in the history of the place and the
surrounding nature. The primary factor that made us decide in this sense was a
slow but inexorable detachment from contemporary society: the way I have been
living until then was not that of a real man, the real man is the one who was
asleep somewhere in the depths of consciousness. That is why the return to
nature and its rhythms marked by the elements, from the cold of winter that
tempers the soul to the summer heat that grows the fruits of our garden becomes
a "rule." In the manner of ancient monastic orders, land and spirit,
a social model that does not need anything else. Over the next 10 years the
world will have to face a number of overwhelming problems: overpopulation, lack
of oil and raw materials, climate change, reduced food production, drainage of
drinking water sources, unbridled globalization, colossal debt. the system is
most likely destined to collapse. So, we have to find solutions to survive. The
media, the blind dogmatism of economists, an incompetent and destructive
political class focused on defending its privileges, a world based on
capitalism, serve only and exclusively to distract the public. But societies
change because new ideas appear. The two main trends of the Left (Social
Democracy and Communism) and the two main trends of the Right (the one that
excludes any state intervention in the economy and the one that sees it as
necessary to overcome the crisis) are culturally united by a positive
assessment of the system of industrial production. Yet, if we think of our
ancestors there was a time when a different lifestyle was possible, a time when
man was part of nature: in the center was the earth.
But how did we get to this point?
The war
on farmers started in England in the 1700s with the emancipation of enclosure
laws, which obliged to encircle open fields and common lands to allow the
adoption of agricultural techniques aimed at increasing the agricultural
yields, in a word to "grow". Being good at nothing perceived as an
anthropological impoverishment, along with the identification of the concepts
of "new" and "best", are the distinctive features of the
perfect compulsive consumer that the growth economy needs. "Our country
just buys... It's just a big market of neurotic people all the same, poor and
rich, who buy, buy, know nothing, and then they throw away and then buy again.
Money is something abstract and religious at the same time, an end, an
investment: “I have money, to buy stuff, how good I am, how my life has been
successful, this money must increase "(Goffredo Parise, 1974). All this
has to change: a system based on this kind of principle cannot last, and above
all it cannot guarantee any prosperity or peace. We need to rethink a model
integrated with the environment, a model that can meet the needs of the
community.
The National-Anarchist community.
The finalization of the economy to subsistence, the predominantly agricultural connotation of the economy, the persistence of craftsmanship and exchanges based on gift and reciprocity, are the founding characteristics of the communities. The etymology is made up of two Latin words: the preposition cum, which supports the complement of companionship, and the name munus, which means gift, not so much of things but of time. The economy of the gift does not exclude merchandise exchanges, but they have a scope which is limited to goods that are not self-produced and do not exchange in the form of a gift is derived from the sale of surpluses. As a result, it does not turn around and does not need much, so behavior patterns and lifestyles are characterized by sobriety. You do not buy more than you need and you do not waste anything, so that none is missing the essential. The socio-environmental context of livelihood economies is the country (the community) where limited groups of families derive most of their vital needs from agriculture in the surrounding countryside and from the resources of the territory (wood, building material, spontaneous fruits). Economies which are therefore poor but not synonymous with misery, as in the city. Engaging in industrialized countries to end the growth economy, rediscovering the importance of self-production for self-consumption, traditional agriculture, crafts, community relations, gift economy, sobriety, respect for the Earth, the symbiosis that binds humanity to chlorophyllic photosynthesis through the breath, beauty, contemplation, and spirituality. This recovery of values and patterns of past behavior is a necessary condition to reduce the ecological footprint of the human species and to allow more equitable sharing of resources among peoples: only a decline can lead to these assumptions and guarantee a more sustainable and therefore possible future. We must abandon the pathetic attempts to rebuild the left (bankruptcy) because if the finalization is the growth this goal is surely best represented by the right. It must be understood that greater equality between humans can only be achieved if one pursues greater equity in the relationship between the human species and the other living species. Only if you stop believing that the construction of a steel mill is a step forward because it raises the number of occupants, even if the air gets intoxicated, pollutes the water and increases the incidence of cancer diseases, even if it devastates the seafront and the forms of life that live in it, the surrounding farmland and the forms of life that populate them, with immature environmental failures. Modern capitalism, the most peculiar and harmful social structure of human history, identifies progress with the most rugged competition and rivalry; The social status with the accumulation of wealth. This is the current picture that distinguishes us. Co-operation by virtue of competition, was the motto of pre-capitalist communities. In organic society, often illiterate or tribal, dominance was virtually absent. The principle of the irreducible minimum was almost the only axis on which the community was founded: the right to live was not questioned within the community itself. Together with substantial equality, the art of persuasion, and the conception of diversity seen as complementarities, organic societies were also based on the usufruct: objects were not owned but were, on the contrary, available to individuals and families of a certain community as needed. In that time nature and society were one, a fade-in, intimately perceived as the sense of belonging and the sharing of ancestral costumes. This nature was by no means the devitalized entity of today, subject to technical research and manipulation.
It was instead made up of wild animals also organized along lines of kinship such as human clans, living forests as places that can offer protection, cosmic forces such as winds, rains, sun and light. Nature permeated the community as a parental lineage that kept individuals and generations united. Mutual loyalty as a bond of blood was the organic source of community continuity. It was blood-related affiliation, determined by having both ancestors and descendants in common, as to whether an individual could be accepted as part of a group, with whom to marry, what his responsibilities were. It was through the biological reality of these blood constraints and genealogy that nature had penetrated into the fundamental institutions of tribal society. The lineage defined the individual and the group, as well as the skin marks the limit that separates one person from the other. This does not mean denying any technological development: there is no purely technical progress and a society must be able to refuse a "more advanced" technique if the social consequences or those of other type are negative. Technology is always the result of a choice and therefore every new technological choice is to be screened by society as a whole and not by the narrow economic or scientific elites of the community. One of the pillars on which the ecological superficial movement is based is that the environmental crisis is a technical matter, that can be solved with further technological progress, without any change in the mentality or economic system. Unlike deep ecology, it emphasizes value choices and believes that the environmental crisis is produced by a rooted ideology of consumption and production. This type of ecology is for us a national anarchist source of inspiration. As growth prospects, deep-seated partisans are not aiming at a bland reform of today's society, but to a radical downsizing of our civilization through responsible global ecopolitics. Ecology must be metaphysical and not just scientific, it must be ecosophy. The solution is first and foremost political, and if you want to hope to overthrow current trends (Trump docet) you need a common front between those who fight for the individual and those who fight against the system. Most institutions are anti-ecological agencies. The crisis of living conditions on Earth could help us choose a new path with new criteria of progress, efficiency and rational action. Reform or Revolution? I propose a revolutionary transformation accomplished through many small steps in a new and radically different direction. But revolutions do not start by themselves, let alone by entrenching ourselves behind a computer. We fight the war by shopping! We can boycott multinationals who choose to annihilate us without buying their product, as well as we can mislead the political system by not voting. In the biological sphere, if humanity wants to avoid being replaced by a different species, the struggle against nature must end. In this way, thanks to an increasing sensitivity for ecosystem relationships, humans can live by modest material means (where modest is not synonymous with poverty!) and achieve a greater goal. If we do not solve the problem of the relationship between man and the ecosystem, we will never get rid of the problems that afflict us. Everything is connected because we're all linked, not just among humans, but among all species. So, once we begin to think that we are not above nature, but we are part of it, we will begin to understand that our problems can be solved, which is not an isolated issue. It's all connected "(the video-documentary Racing Extinction shows it very well). "We need to know better about man, the health that comes from living by nature, the harmony between Blood, Soil and Cosmos, the Reform of the Purpose of the Nation's Life, Knowledge and Life, the Law of Living," Rudolf Steiner said in the years of Hitler's Germany. Without being intimidated by the Nazi party, German organic farmers made a real campaign to bring Walter Darré and his department on their side inviting them to their farms. In 1940, he became convinced of the superiority of organic agriculture (organic-dynamic, or biodynamic). After Hess's defeat in Great Britain, Heydrich and Hitler banned the anthroposophic society: but part of the Nazi elite continued to support Steiner and the anthropophytes, including Darré, who criticized Hitler's military conduct by announcing the defeat of Germany by having " Betrayed the ideas of Blood and Soil." After the end of the war, those Nazis sent their children to the Steinerian schools.
The problem
of oil and the response of substitute energies.
Coal,
natural gas, nuclear power, nuclear fusion are all temporary solutions and
above all damaging to the environment: each of these solutions presents
problems that are difficult to solve. Nothing escapes entropy. There are more
realistic hopes focusing on renewable energies supplied by wind, water, plants
and sun:
- Biofuels (beet, canola, sugar cane, etc.)
- Solar power
- Wind energy
- Biomass
- Geothermal
It is
Interesting to note that, as in the Abu Dhabi emirate, the Masdar initiative
provides for a total investment of $ 200 billion by 2020 in the production of
renewable energies. In Europe there is Baltic One, a project linked to wind
farms that is expected to feed more than 340,000 homes. But high technology is
not the only way to change things. The more traditional technologies are often
more likely to rehabilitate dying or damaged ecosystems, or to improve their
activity. Livelihood farming based on permaculture and biodynamics requires low
water, fertilizers and pesticides consumption. Permaculture, whose concept has
been popularized by agronomists such as David Holmgren and Bill Mollison, makes
it possible to create an agricultural land that resembles the existing natural
relationships between different plants, making them at the same time very
productive. Mollison asserts without hesitation that "he sees no other
solution (political-economic) to the problems of mankind than the formation of
small responsible communities, committed to the application of permaculture and
the appropriate technologies. Days of centralized power are counted, and a new
tribalization of society is an inevitable process." A project aimed at
reducing inequalities among humans should presuppose the dismantling of harmful
industries and the recovery of subsistence farming by selling surpluses with
the aim of achieving maximum self-sufficiency (based on horticulture,
permaculture, biodynamic). After the collapse of the USSR, North Korea and Cuba
found themselves without oil or agricultural aid. North Korea, with its
centralized and statist structure, has faced a famine that has caused millions
of deaths. Cuba, liberalizing agriculture, maximizing agricultural land (on
roofs, palaces, parks, abandoned land, etc.) and using permaculture techniques
has succeeded not only in allowing the population to survive, but also in
increasing the Production and quality of food. In the building, passive houses
allow you to use the sun light and heat as it used to be in the traditional
way. These techniques had been abandoned due to cheap heating and air
conditioning. Modern architecture has built difficult buildings to heat, cool
and ventilate. Personally, I am convinced that the recovery of ancient and
solid homes, which have weathered the climate and the wars of men, are a good
starting point for our self-reliant self-sufficiency. In the field of housing
construction, where we have not settled in old farms, we can make our own
bio-building baggage. There are several solutions to build our own farmhouse at
almost zero impact, it's up to us to choose how to use our energies.
Personally, I think it is very interesting to think of straw houses and raw
land. The houses of this type are made by using 100% recyclable and in-house
materials, guaranteeing energy saving and exploiting the natural insulating
properties of straw and wood. This makes life completely wholesome thanks to
the high breathability of the materials, the absence of stagnation of internal
moisture as well as no energy interference on people for the absence of iron
and cement. Thermo-acoustic insulation, resistance to earthquakes and longevity
are elements to take into account.
We have
to change the mindset we got inculcated with: let's start with the concept of
efficiency.
The ecology of a prairie, where many varieties of flowers and herbs maintain a fertile and healthy soil, is not efficient: only one species grown in single crops is certainly efficient, but in an illusory way. In fact, it will deprive the soil of its nutrients, ease the erosion and ultimately destroy this land for a long time. Nature, on the other hand, is totally ineffective from this point of view, and it is vital for that! A very interesting example combining nature and food needs in an inefficient way (but absolutely productive!) Is the so-called "Food Forest", also called forest garden, edible forest and vegetable garden. Food Forest is a multipurpose and multifunctional cultivation in which wood, fruit plants, medicinal herbs, vegetables and so on are located in synergy with spontaneous plants and animals. It can be done in a corner of the garden or in extents of very large terrain, you can also convert an existing forest or orchard. Virtually it is a gardening or management technique of orchard / garden that simulates a forest ecosystem by cultivating on several layers (herbaceous, shrubby and arboreal). The fruit trees are upstairs, while below there are edible berry shrubs, perennial and annual plants. Together they create relationships to form an ecosystem that can produce high food production with less maintenance. It is said that in Italy a few centuries ago a squirrel could move from Apulia to Aosta Valley without ever landing. Italy, if there was no man, would be a forest and the more we want to get away from the forest system, the more we need to put energy into the system because nature does not return to its original form. That is why a Food Forest can be a great way to produce food by using little energy. Another important point is enough: measuring one's life by quality rather than quantity standards, with regard to relationships rather than things, is one of the keys to happiness. To hell with the Pil, isn't the Bhutan’s system, which points to happiness as a well-being index of its inhabitants, much more reasonable? Imagination, rejection of constraints and dogmas complete the picture. We must return to live with more simplicity and frugality, which is not synonymous with poverty and misery!
The ecology of a prairie, where many varieties of flowers and herbs maintain a fertile and healthy soil, is not efficient: only one species grown in single crops is certainly efficient, but in an illusory way. In fact, it will deprive the soil of its nutrients, ease the erosion and ultimately destroy this land for a long time. Nature, on the other hand, is totally ineffective from this point of view, and it is vital for that! A very interesting example combining nature and food needs in an inefficient way (but absolutely productive!) Is the so-called "Food Forest", also called forest garden, edible forest and vegetable garden. Food Forest is a multipurpose and multifunctional cultivation in which wood, fruit plants, medicinal herbs, vegetables and so on are located in synergy with spontaneous plants and animals. It can be done in a corner of the garden or in extents of very large terrain, you can also convert an existing forest or orchard. Virtually it is a gardening or management technique of orchard / garden that simulates a forest ecosystem by cultivating on several layers (herbaceous, shrubby and arboreal). The fruit trees are upstairs, while below there are edible berry shrubs, perennial and annual plants. Together they create relationships to form an ecosystem that can produce high food production with less maintenance. It is said that in Italy a few centuries ago a squirrel could move from Apulia to Aosta Valley without ever landing. Italy, if there was no man, would be a forest and the more we want to get away from the forest system, the more we need to put energy into the system because nature does not return to its original form. That is why a Food Forest can be a great way to produce food by using little energy. Another important point is enough: measuring one's life by quality rather than quantity standards, with regard to relationships rather than things, is one of the keys to happiness. To hell with the Pil, isn't the Bhutan’s system, which points to happiness as a well-being index of its inhabitants, much more reasonable? Imagination, rejection of constraints and dogmas complete the picture. We must return to live with more simplicity and frugality, which is not synonymous with poverty and misery!
Just have what you need and do not want what you do not need. The indispensable elements for a successful independent community are seven:
1. Water
2. Feeding
3. Health and Hygiene
4. Energy
5. Knowledge
6. Defense
7. Social Link
Water:
Being close to a source of water (river, lake, etc.) is a good starting point
to establish a small community. There are several possibilities in the market
for using it both as a source of energy and as an indispensable element of
life: we humans are made up of a large amount of water after all (the water content
gradually decreases by an average of 75% About 50% in old age)! So, we think of
a Phyto-purification plant that will provide purified water to recycle for
agricultural purposes. The ideal solution is to have pure spring water, use
solar energy and recycle 90% of your wastes. They consume mostly organic foods,
heat water through solar energy and use natural and biodegradable products to
clean. A meeting place where you can approach sustainable lifestyles and
conscious nutrition is an excellent starting point for getting to know the
thinking model of a national anarchist community. Respect for the environment,
nature, people and for all living things is at the center of our 'utopia'.
Feeding:
Proper nutrition is crucial. I personally adopted a vegan regime after having
had a brief vegetarian transition. The motives are many, and not all,
anthropocentrically healthy. But we'll talk about it later. Getting food is one
of the most felt needs: the goal is to produce as much as possible for our
needs. Avoiding buying manipulated industrial food and full of preservatives is
one of the first goals to keep in mind, consequently using seasonal vegetables
and fruits as much as possible at KM0 if we could not fully satisfy our needs.
The biggest change we have to do is from consumption to food production, even
if on a small scale, in our gardens. If only 10% of us do it would suffice for
everyone. From here comes the futility of revolutionaries who do not have a
vegetable garden and who depend on the system they attack. There is no other
path than that of cooperative productivity and community responsibility.
Health
and hygiene are in step with each other and are a consequence of choosing how
to nourish ourselves: great tips are in fact available to everyone in search of
the word "hygiene" (sunbathing, therapeutic fasting, etc.). Cleaning
is of course fundamental, but let's remember that if we opted for a vegan diet
the dirt we pick up in the garden and especially the one that gets stuck under
our nails provides abundantly for our vitamin B12 intake. So, wash your hands,
yes, but not in a compulsive way. Physical culture inevitably comes to the fore
if we choose to take the path of life in nature: do not think about gym or
fitness, in the country physical activity goes through a real body work only by
cultivating a vegetable garden, deforesting or keep a forest clean, take care
of animals and your own home with ordinary and extraordinary maintenance.
Closely related to these fundamental features is spirituality: without a
sincere return to the balance of our mind and spirit we will not go far.
Contact with nature is a master and is the foundation on which to lay the
cornerstone of our community.
Energy:
Coming to energy, a small corner of paradise completely self-sufficient from
the energetic and economic point of view, built directly by those who live in
it is the dream of many of us. To accomplish this, it is not enough to imagine
it, but a lot of knowledge is needed. First of all, what are we talking about
exactly? Energy? Electricity? Heating? Or anything else? Before answering these
questions, we need to be sure of which lifestyle and level of comfort we want
to achieve or whom we want to satisfy. If our home is in a very hot area
(Mediterranean, for example) our problem will be to protect us from heat. If we
have chosen a temperate or colder area (mountain or hill, for example: and this
is my case!) We will have to think about how to warm it up in the winter. It is
clear that the first choice has its advantages, especially of economic order.
After evaluating several options, we have now chosen a heating system based on
a wood boiler: living near a very woody forest and being a short distance away
from a decentralized country where there are still woodcutters, it seemed to be
the less expensive and more acceptable solution at the moment. We get part of
the wood needs from the cleanliness of the property and part of it we buy from
the co-inhabitants of the country, triggering and fuelling an economic engine
of the indigenous social fabric in which we find ourselves. We also looked at
the possibility of a geothermal system, but at the moment it is still a project
in the drawer. It should be said that wherever there are economic
possibilities, it is one of the most intelligent systems to make themselves
self-sufficient: but what does it consist of? Geothermal energy is the energy
generated by geological sources of heat and can be considered a form of
alternative and renewable energy if evaluated in a short time. It is based on
the principles of geothermal energy, or on the exploitation of Earth's natural
heat (geothermal gradient) due to the thermal energy released by the natural
nuclear decay processes of radioactive elements such as uranium, thorium and
potassium, naturally contained within the Earth (core, cloak and earth crust).
From the point of view of the generation of electricity, geothermal energy
allows the natural forces to extract a large amount of renewable and clean
energy. An additional advantage is the possible recycling of wastes, thus
helping us to save. Drilling is the greatest cost; In 2005, geothermal energy
cost between 50 and 150 euros per MWh, but it seems that this cost has dropped
to 50-100 euros per MWh in 2010 and is expected to fall to 40-80 euros per MWh
in 2020. In relation to the generation of thermal energy geothermal (low
enthalpy) has many advantages: economy, environment, security, availability and
architecture. Alternatively, there are today several solutions related to wind
power (produced by the wind) and solar energy. Depending on our geographical
positioning and orientation, once again, we must make the right considerations.
If we want to fully cover our energy production needs, we need 35 m2 of panels
(example valid for a typical family home). However, the problem is the night:
in the absence of sunlight, we will no longer have electricity. Consideration
should therefore be given to the use of expensive batteries, or the connection
to the power grid, thus frustrating our goals of full autonomy. A hybrid
solution is expected to connect to the power grid, but backed by backup
batteries, to be used only in case of an emergency. Or we can re-evaluate
Gandhi and his rejection of electricity: "We will have nothing to do with
the shining splendor of crystals, and, like in the past, we will wicker with
our cotton and we will use hand-made sub-cups like lamps. In this way, we will
save our eyes and our money and thus achieve self-government."
Consequently, without necessarily becoming primitivists, we share Gandhi's
condemnation of the consumer society and exalt an ideal of frugality and
voluntary simplicity.
Knowledge:
knowledge is the neuralgic point for choosing to live independently and with a
look at a sensible ecological society. And knowledge is translated with the
term culture: I mean not only a beautiful library, but a realistic
predisposition to learn everything that may be needed for life in line with our
principles. We do not only think about what we like, we reflect on what our
culture defines. The usefulness of this culture is not only that of a pastime,
it must be preserved from destruction and convey it to future generations.
Knowledge and wisdom will help both us and our extended community recognize
what is really important. Their broadcasting brings us to the organization of
what we can call a community school, where energy is aimed at teaching young
people who will be the future of the community itself. Far from the
Indoctrination of State Schools!
Defense:
A first approach is to wonder how to keep our community safe? And above all by
what to defend it? It is evident that more than animals and natural events we
refer to the threat of our fellow men, the greatest danger remains the man. A
compact community is the best possible defense. Being alone is still our weak
point: that is why it is good to maintain good social relationships with the
neighbors, not to let us be carried away by easy instrumentalizations, but try
to put to fruition our experience and that of those who preceded us. That is
why in times of crisis like this, it is good not to isolate ourselves
completely. Accepting the fact that having to defend ourselves is our own right
and a duty towards ourselves and our loved ones. Common members of the
community must be able to be prepared in the event of an external attack, so it
is best to cultivate a good physical culture, practice self-defense with
martial arts and know how to juggle weapons (not just firearms). Knowledge of
the territory is of course very important; hence excursions are suggested to
everyone. Likewise, an easily accessible community system (castles, farms,
etc.) is a great deterrent towards potential aggressors.
Social
Link: I deliberately left this point as the last because it allows us a series
of reflections and a major development. "We cannot eradicate the
individual from the community, because, as the anthropologist Werner Schiffauer
points out, "collective identity and individual identity are inextricably
linked." Raising and ethnic crucifixion expropriate individual identities
from collective identity, causing a state of precariousness, highly stressful,
in individuals. Such a situation raises irrational recovery, true or false, of
group membership in a process of frenetic ethnocultural self-reliance (think of
the US or the former USSR, detested by decades of mass deportations and today
shaken by endemic inter-ethnic struggles). The overwhelming, incontrovertible,
widespread return of a series of racial issues is undeniable, especially in
large urban agglomerations; National-anarchist communities can be the positive
answer to the problem. Tribal and ethnic understanding must not be a taboo, as
it should not be a preconception. As we have already said elsewhere, the
community can be based on any principle of belonging (food choice, sexual
orientation, religion, etc.), but in this context, I would like to focus on
ethnicity, obviously far from being labelled as racist. Ethnicity is a more
concrete and less abstract concept than race. It is historical, dynamic,
complex, rich: it encloses culture and nature, genetics and environment, myths
and destiny. Ethnicities are coached by common history and passions, ways to feel
and see the world, affinity with blood and ties to your own land. Each and
every one belongs to an ethnic group and it belongs to us. There are
micro-ethnicities and macro- ethnicities, almost like a system of Chinese boxes
(e.g. Tyrolean and German). Nature - understood in a much wider sense than
merely biological - binds us from birth with wires that we can certainly break,
but that we often contribute to reinforce. Man's propensity towards auto
segregation, not imposed, but spontaneous, seems to be an anthropological
constant (see “Racial Separatism” on N-AM Manifesto). Man has, since its
inception, been a social being, in which sociality, however, is extrinsic to
the double compulsory binary of cohesion and exclusion: the search for a center
and a boundary that defends, imposing "limits", preventing Chaotic
contacts that generate anxiety, stress, conflict. These behaviors are the
expression at the human level of a trend pervading living nature in a global
way: we are talking about tension towards differentiation. In its cyclical
process, life creates a series of differences, aspires to give a specific form
to both collective bodies and individuals: heterogeneity constitutes its law,
while macrophysics predominates homogeneity. Just think of the incredible
richness and variety of animal and plant species and the differences that we
ourselves can find not only in physical features but also in behaviors among
the animals that are familiar to us. The living is characterized by being
individualized: the difference between subjects and groups increases with the
increase in the level of complexity. Any organism, as long as it lives, wins
the forces of homogenization and levelling, resisting the "entropic
fatality", that is to say those forces that dominate inert matter and
which result in a loss of dynamical ordering factors proper to the system. As
physicist and epistemologist Stéphane Lupasco wrote, biological death equals a
fall in the size of the physical, homogeneous, level systems. If one reflects
on what is laid, it will be obvious to consider personality as the most complex
and profound expression of this natural tendency to differentiation, whose
power is incontrovertible. When we speak of personality we refer, of course,
both to the, most notorious, individual one and to that of the groups, the
nuclei of subjects belonging to the same species, which join together,
separating from their allies, and maintaining cohesion long enough in time. The
flocks of primates, or other zoological orders, reject outsiders, even the
conspecific ones, and maintain a high degree of behavioral "conformism”
within the group: individuals who deviate too far from preconceived behavioral
charges, even in consequence of the after-effects of an illness, are violently
assaulted by their former companions, as it has been observed by famous
ethologist Jane Goodall.
"The
group is compact against the outsider," says Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt. With
suggestive words, Robert Ardrey reminded us that "as a member of a herd, a
flock or a class or herd or noyau, the social animal belongs to a group
differentiated by all the other groups, and within it it conquers a Territory
or a social rank, or a place on which to perch or rest, recognized as its own,
distinguishes it from all the other members of the group and thus obtains an
identity. " Differentiation always traces two levels, the individual and
the community, complementary to each other. Generally speaking the livings do
not like to mix and, if they do, they follow the rules that nature has imposed.
It is interesting to point out that even the results of studies of child
psychology and human ethology converge to outline a similar picture. It should
be stressed that the rejection and the sense of strangeness towards the other,
which is unknown to us, are much more rooted towards individuals belonging to
our own species rather than towards members of other species: the child is much
more intimidated by the presence of foreign humans rather than of wild animals,
albeit not well-known (in this sense, antispecism is absolutely consistent with
human nature). Konrad Lorenz, in his main text of ethological philosophy, The
Other Side of the Mirror, wrote that "cultures that have reached a certain
degree of reciprocal differentiation behave in a manner similar to that of
different animal species, but closely It is important to emphasize the close
degree of kinship, because it has never happened, as we know, that, due to a
divergent evolution, two cultural groups have differed so ethologically and
ecologically from the point of view of to be able to live peacefully next to
each other in the same area, as they do, for example, different kinds of ducks
with a total lack of relationships and without entering into mutual
competition. " Two points must be highlighted at this point: geographical
proximity and partial similarity as essential factors of competition and clash.
In particular, the tensions arise not because they are too different, but
because they are still too similar, and thus deal with the same ecological
niches. Adapting to a number of norms within the group, which inevitably
involves conformism, becomes a cementing and discriminating factor towards the
outside. The global village metaphor needs to be replaced with that of an ocean
(nature) in which many boats sail. Meltin’pot, says Eibl-Eibesfeldt forcefully,
is antibiological, unworkable without strong coercion, operating only in a
totalitarian context: nothing is more distant from the national-Anarchist
vision. Therefore, all human cultures tend to separate themselves, isolate
themselves from one another, acting as if they were different biological
species. We are certainly in the presence of a cultural development, but its
bases are biological, that is, the above-mentioned tendency to reject outsiders
and to establish and defend their own specific identity. Different species are
no longer interfacing, different communities no longer produce overlapping
cultural heritage. If it is the break-up of something qualitatively
"different" to form a specific ethnic identity, it seems illusory to
believe that such a traumatic event can easily be forgotten and settled under
the reassurance of welfare: this can happen for a minority of people within the
community or, even more easily, if they are separated from it, but not for the
majority, which will always remain sensitive to the "mythical"
recall: the voice of heredity, a decisive imprinting. In theory, watering every
community identity would seem to be the best solution to overcome racial tension,
as the causes of tensions will be lacking. Only individual identities,
tolerable in an atomized society like ours, would remain. But we forget that
the tendency to group, to self-assimilate, is not part of the past history of
western men or of the contemporary so-called "primitive" tribes only,
but it belongs to the human being in his perennial integrity; it constitutes,
in fact, an essential, non-accessory element that qualifies us.
The
emergence of new clusters in cosmopolitan cities, as we have already mentioned,
still proves it today! It reveals the existence of a complex series of bio
sociocultural events that contrast the "ideological" tendency,
prevalent in mass societies, among which the internal contradictions of the
global homologation process must be noted. Of course, speaking of identity must
not lead to misunderstandings: we are far from considering this term as the
expression of a closed, static, fatalistic reality. We consider it in a
dynamic, open, interactive way: it is a perennial nucleus that is known to be
an ever-new "form", adapted to changing times and external
conditions. We could call it a harmonious law that determines certain
structures or, if desired, certain proportions, but that can extrude itself in
a thousand different ways, renewing itself. Different ethnicities, both
biological and cultural, closely related and intertwined, have very different
concepts and perceptions on basic, central elements of everyday life such as
privacy, interpersonal distances, environmental order, property, boundaries.
Their symbolic universes, which go far beyond sociological analyzes, are very
different: an open or closed door, a look, a silence, a gesture, have not
mutually overlapping meanings between different cultures, meaning the latter
term in an anthropological sense. We are, therefore, in the presence of
semantics often lacking in mutual tonality, even though they are neighbouring
ethnicities. The role played by certain factors may be diametrically opposite.
The creation of differentiated ethnic-cultural communities, separate national
anarchist communities, should among other things allow people who live there to
interact, to know each other, to create ever-widespread ties, following their
own rhythms and customs, inverting the processes of mutual extradition so
widespread in mass civilization: the creation of micro-communities would be
very profitable even in contexts free from ethnic tensions. In fact, the
process of progressive loosening of interpersonal bonds is a tremendous
problem, which makes the megalopoles unobtrusive, leading to the mechanization
of social relationships and hence to an increase of violence typical of those
environments which are populated by anonymous subjects, disconnected from each
other and from the context.
On the
historical strength and disruptive power of the ethnic group, Michael Walzer
has written very lucid pages on "MicroMega" when he noticed that
tribalism, or ethnicity, has been the protagonist of recent history, having
largely fed antitotalitarian and anti-communist fight. "If peoples are
admitted to politics, they will come to you by marching for tribes, bringing
with them their languages, their historical memories, their beliefs, and
loyalty. Tribalism indicates the attachment of individuals and groups to their
own history, culture and Identity and attachment is a permanent feature of
social life. " This leads to a challenge with uncertain outcome, with
which we have to measure ourselves in a proactive way; which means to abstain
from any purely repressive, sterile hypothesis, but adopt the perspective of a
global integration of human complexity in an order of things that stimulates
and assists the personal and collective growth. To live between different
people, respecting each other and maintaining our identities is possible; But
it needs a general framework in which to integrate, regulate and harmonize
migratory flows, without forgetting that the return to a libertarian and
anarchist conception of politics could offer a unifying point that would create
the conditions for a fair coexistence between multiplicities linked to one
superior symbolic unit. The freedom to remain what we are and at the same time
to live with others while maintaining the inevitable tensions at physiological
levels is an ambitious but concrete goal: to inherit and transmit. In some
cases, all this can be frayed, paired, and so we talk about sleeping
ethnicities; In other cases, it is very alive. In synthetic terms, Anthony
Smith's definition of those ethnic groups, that keep on being active on the
history scene, is based on five points:
1. Owning specific origins
2. Having knowledge of your past
3. believing in one's own destiny
4. Having a specific collective culture
5. Sharing a singular community solidarity.
Collaboration
with other people in the community is therefore fundamental, in those still
"conscious" it is innate. As it is the individual experience of its
members, it would be impossible to get to be experts in everything, better to
specialize in a branch and ask for mutual assistance in other fields. The idea
of Otto Strasser makes conveys the idea perfectly: Volk, the people who form
the community, must be based on a peasant middle class capable of expressing
every other social and intellectual activity: worker-peasant, intellectual-peasant,
soldier- farmer. Personally, I am fascinated by medieval monastic-chivalrous
communities, I believe that the normalization of the planet must be fought by
small and self-centered communities spiritually and economically, strongly
cohesive with common goals. A society without roots and without spirituality
cannot withstand long, it is an absolute priority to focus on alternative
housing systems. It is not just about changing our way of housing but also of
living: improving social relationships, producing goods in the respect of the
environment, and avoid pursuing the sole purpose of profit. The benefits are
numerous: sustainability from the point of view of housing and food, ethical
and integrated jobs in the local socio-economic context, cultural
socio-economic activities of communities that bring added value to the quality
of life, new way of living and building and incentive for self-building. Until
now, right-wing forces have embarked on non-scientific nationalism, or, to say
it better, on a sentimental patriotism and a jumble that dragged them to the
worst imperialist aberrations; and all this gives rise to real national
interests. Left forces, blinded by class problems, have not studied national
affairs for a long time, and where they did, we think of Stalin, they have made
confused, unrealistic and largely false attempts (Francois Fontan, Movimento
Autnomista Occitano). National-Anarchism is the answer that combines ethology
and ecology, nation and society.
How
does this reflection relate to the ecological environment?
I agree
with Murray Bookchin when he says that most of our ecological problems have
their roots in social problems and the current disunity between humanity and
nature can be traced essentially to social conflicts. I do not think there can
be balance between humanity and nature unless there is a new equilibrium within
society. It is necessary to honestly address the fact that if we do not
transform society in a libertarian sense, the attitudes and institutions that
make us mad at the ecological disaster will continue to operate despite all the
efforts that can be devoted to reform the dominant social system. The
ecological implications of these systems are even more important than their
economic determinations, as they involve the destruction of ecological values
such as complementarity, mutual support, sense of limitation, a deep sense of
community and an organic conception based on unity in diversity. These values
and institutions in which they are embodied are now replaced by competition,
selfishness, unlimited growth, anxiety, and purely instrumental rationality, in
other words by the belief that reason is nothing more than an
"instrument”, a "dexterity" in adapting the means to the ends
and not a character inherent in an orderly and understandable reality. This
vast array of "modern" categories, which plays an alienating role in
both our human interrelations and in our collective relationship with nature,
finds its most poignant expression in capitalism - both Western private
capitalism and Eastern bureaucratic capitalism - that is, in a system of
"grow-or-die" (i.e. endless capital accumulation as a function of
survival in a competitive market), which threatens to destroy the whole
biosphere unless it is replaced by a new radically different social setting.
Such social transformation does not simply imply the establishment of new
economic relations related to ownership or control of property. It involves the
acquisition of a new anti-authoritarian sensitivity, the development of new
technologies that harmonize our relationship with nature and not the other way
around. If the ecological movement retreated from the social arena, seeking a
"healthy" private life, or, if naively, it turned to pure electoral
practice in search of influence and power, the loss for all of us would be
irreparable. We have seen the so-called "green" Europeans making
continuous compromises with the dominant social system in order to acquire
"power" with the only result of being progressively absorbed by the
same power they sought to transform. Ecological thinking can now provide the
most relevant synthesis of ideas that has been seen after the Enlightenment. It
can open prospects for a practice that can really change the whole social
landscape of our time. It is urgent and of vital importance not to allow an
ecological way of thinking and the resulting movement to end with degenerating
into new forms of state-politics and partisan tournaments on the one hand and /
or in mystical and spiritualistic ways carriers of quietism and social
passivity, on the other. There is a way, which is neither the one of
conventional policy - that is, state politics - nor that of mystic quietism: it
is the direct policy, the "basic" policy, founded on community
mobilization and municipal federalism, a federalism that can put in jeopardy
the centralization of statalism and the capitalist concentration that marks our
age in a nefarious way. The truth has never been simple, one-dimensional. It is
often a thin red thread, so to speak, that links respect for the environment,
human and animal differences, ethical, political, and reasoning. Capitalism has
separated itself from the human race as brutally and cruelly as it has
separated society from nature. That nature too is a victim of this competitive,
accumulative and expansive social fury should be obvious, unless there is a
strong tendency to trace the origins of it to technology and industry as such.
Many associate this change to technology. But very few reflect on how deep technology
is transforming the world, the objective and factual reality of people, in the
guise of consumers, citizens and voters. On the speed of flight and willpower
of technology and its continuous evolution, numerous books have been written in
recent years that propose new conceptual and cognitive tools to better
understand technology and / or suggest a critical reflection useful for a
different and more aware use of technology and to better understand its effects
on the future evolution of mankind. That modern technology exalts certain
fundamental economic factors, namely development as a rule of life in a
competitive economy and the commodification of mankind and nature, is a clear
fact. But technology and industry as such do not transform any ecosystem,
especially soil, watercourse, and even the oceans and the air into a mere
exploitation. They do not monetize or give a price to anything that can be
exploited in the competitive struggle for survival and development. Talking
about "growth limits" in a capitalist capital market does not make
any sense, as it makes no sense to talk of the limits of war in a war society.
The moral scruples which today give voice to so many wise environmentalists are
so naive as multinationals are foolish. Capitalism cannot be
"persuaded" to put a brake on its development, just as one cannot
"persuade" a human being to stop breathing. Attempts to realize a
"green" or "ecological" capitalism are condemned to failure
because of the very nature of the system, which is a system of continuous
growth. With globalization, there is even the mutation of the Homo oeconomicus
in Homo miserabilis, the destitute man: growth and development make
"poisoned poors" out of all individuals, says Serge Latouche. In
fact, the most fundamental concepts of ecology, such as attention to balance,
harmonious development towards greater differentiation, and ultimately
evolution towards greater subjectivity and awareness, are radically opposed to
an economy that homogenizes cities, nature and individual, and that pushes
humans against each other and against nature, with a ferocity that will
eventually destroy the planet. For generations left thinkers have preached
about the "intrinsic limits" of the capitalist system, the
"internal" mechanisms that would inevitably lead to self-destruction.
Of course, capitalism completely embodies the Bakuninian concept of
"evil," without being "socially necessary". Capitalism
derives its strength not only from its ability to produce and consume, but also
from deceiving individuals and manipulating the well-founded criticisms that
have been levelled at it. After the capitalist system, there are no other
"turning points" in history. It marks the end of the path of a long
social development in which good has been permeated by evil and irrationality
has prevailed over rationality. For society and the natural world, in fact,
capitalism is a point of absolute negativity. It cannot be improved,
reconstructed or renewed, simply adding a fashionable prefix
("eco-capitalism") to the end. The only possible alternative is to
destroy it because it embodies all the diseases of society that have afflicted
"civilization" and polluted all its conquests.
The
defense of the landscape against rationalistic deformation must be radical:
said with Tuscan anarchist Mino Maccari, "the city of art is the city of
the country", the countryside is in fact artistic without monuments, it is
a work of art, a piece. Let us be inspired by nature and its laws. Agricultural
practice should not be seen solely as a set of techniques with a production
goal, but it should take into consideration the whole environment in which it
is inscribed, with a real sense of ecology. It must be a regenerating force.
Environmentalism as a movement is fortunately in crisis: its adherence to
superficial ecology that does not question the fundamentals of our society, but
believes that simple adjustments must be made to it, has failed. Environmental
movements did not succeed in their relations with state power. They have sold
whole forests in exchange for some symbolic stock, immense wilderness in
exchange for some national parks and large portions of coastal swamps in return
for a few hectares of intact beach. I find that the answer to the present
planet's death must necessarily go through deep ecology (Arne Naess'
definition), which always claims that it is necessary to rethink the evolution
of society, which does not necessarily have to develop. Indeed, it must find a
modus vivendi with the nature of the holistic type, of interaction and respect.
Deep ecology therefore raises development as a necessity, in favor of another
model of life, no longer anthropocentric. It is clear that nowadays the only
prophetic model of ecology cannot be the superficial one, but the deep one,
which can be integrated into certain aspects of the social one. Moreover,
superficial ecology is an invention from whole cloth that has nothing to do
with the fathers of environmentalism, such as Thoreau, Emerson, Muir, Whitman,
who are certainly more assimilable with the canons of profound ecology. It also
appears clearly in the eyes of those who are attentive to the things of this
world, that there is no other development other than the one currently in
progress. And sustainable development is a contradiction in terms: either
choose development or choose sustainability. Both do not live together. It is
no wonder, therefore, that those who want to engage in the environmental field
today do not delegate to associations that appear old in their structure,
contradictory and delayed in time: choice is ours, absolutely ours and anyone
else's.
I want
to close my intervention by opening a parenthesis that I consider to be of
primary importance for a sustainable future of our communities: the choice to
consciously feed, therefore the vegan one. The reasons are many, but I think
it's possible to sum them up in three points.
Health: Even before the love for animals or the Earth, the reason why a person should become a vegan is their health. Eliminating meat and dairy products means reducing the amount of fat we take into our body, thus eliminating the major sources of occlusion of the arteries that lead to stroke and heart attacks, but also the main sources of obesity. According to the latest statistics, vegan people have a percentage of obesity ranging from 5 to 20% less than those who eat meat. In addition to the scale, also the rest of the body benefits of this diet, like the enormous reduction in the risk of contracting type 2 diabetes. The vegan diet is a complete nutrition: from protein to vitamins, it is all in nature, you just have to know where to look. Legumes are rich in proteins, except those of animal origin which in fact do not serve the human body; without neglecting the economic aspect of the diet: the vegan diet is in fact extremely cheap. Cereals, legumes, and vegetables give the right nutrients to us humans (we are frugivores) at a lower cost compared to animal foods. If we succeed in producing part of our food we also have control over what we actually eat!
Pollution due to farms: the damage caused is multiple and related to various issues. Waste of resources and inefficiency - The problem of livestock farming from an environmental point of view is that they consume much more calories from vegetables than they produce in the form of meat, milk and eggs: as "machines" (because it is considered in herds) that convert vegetable proteins into animal proteins, are completely ineffective. As a result, much more resources are consumed to produce animal food than those needed to produce vegetable food. This huge waste of resources is one of the least publicized, but the most devastating consequences of the much-decanted "Livestock Revolution". It is undeniable that this waste of resources causes enormous environmental impact on the planet.
Soil degradation - Soil degradation is one of the most serious problems that modern agriculture faces. While serving from 20 to 1000 years for the formation of one centimeter of ground, wind and water erode 1% of the planet's soil each year. It is generally not known how animal breeding is one of the factors that contribute to erosion. When a pasture is over-exploited, the livestock compacts the soil with the hooves and rips the vegetation that holds the soil together, thus causing erosion. Intensive farming, on the other hand, destroys the ground because the cultivation of feed grain, necessary to keep this industry, requires a lot of cultivable land. Consequently, the world's per capita arable land continues to decline steadily. An extreme example of soil degradation is the phenomenon known as desertification. Agriculture can contribute to desertification either directly, through damaging agricultural practices such as intensive cultivation, overfishing of pasture land, and endangered use of water, also indirectly, when land is deforested to create new cultivable lands or new pastures for livestock.
Deforestation - In just ten years (from 1990 to 2000), the Brazilian Amazon has lost a forest area equivalent to two times the size of Portugal: the vast majority of this area has become grazing for cattle, domestic consumption and forest product exports to Europe, Japan, USA. The annual rate of deforestation continued to increase in the following years and in 2002 it increased by 40%. 10% of the deforested area is used for the cultivation of soybeans (used as animal feed in intensive breeding), the rest is reserved for pasture; After a few years, the area is facing an irreversible process of desertification, so it is necessary to break down a new portion of forest, in a vision circle that degrades the environment more and more. Between 1997 and 2003, the volume of bovine exports from Brazil increased by more than five times; 80% of this increase in production took place in the Amazon forest.
Chemical Pollution - Humans have been farming for more than
10,000 years, but over the last 50 years, growers have developed a heavy
dependence on synthetic chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Harvests actually
absorb only one-third to half of the nitrogen applied to the soil as
fertilizer: unused chemicals contaminate soil and water. Given that, according
to FAO statistics, half of cereals and 90% of soya produced in the world are
used as animal feed and that these chemicals are mostly used in single crops
for the production of animal feed, it is clear That the greatest responsibility
for this enormous use of chemicals is in the practice of livestock farming. If
land was used to produce food for direct human consumption, sustainably, using
rotational cultivation, much less chemicals would be needed.
Energy use - Conversion from fodder cereals involves
a huge loss of energy, especially if cattle are used for conversion. The
average amount of fossil fuel required to produce 1 kcal of protein from meat
is 25 kcal, or 11 times as much as that needed for wheat production, which is
about 2.2 kcal. The ratio is 57: 1 for lamb meat, 40: 1 for beef, 39: 1 for
eggs, 14: 1 for milk and pork.
Water Consumption - Water Consumption is one of the major
causes of environmental impact of livestock farming. Agriculture, mostly
devoted to livestock and feed, consumes more water than any other activity in
the United States, and generally uses 70% of the total water used in the world.
The water required to produce various types of vegetable food and forage varies
from 500 to 2000 liters per kilo of harvested product. Livestock uses only 1.3%
of total water used in agriculture; However, if the water required for grain
and animal feed is also taken into consideration, the amount of water required
is considerably higher. Despite the variability, both in the estimates of water
consumption and in cultivation methods, there is unanimous and wide evidence
that leads to the unmistakable conclusion that the production of animal food
for human consumption requires 3 to 50 times the amount of 'Water needed to
produce vegetable food.
Waste Disposal - When animals are bred with traditional methods, their deerings are considered to be of great use - a key element in rotating farming systems that produce a wide variety of food and maintain healthy and fertile soil. However, as many animals are raised in a too small area, the surrounding environment cannot dispose of all the defects produced. This is what happens every day in intensive "groundless" breeding, so widespread in developed countries and rapidly expanding in developing ones. Liquid and semi-liquid cuts of livestock contain levels of phosphorus and nitrogen above the norm because animals can absorb only a small portion of the amount of these substances present in their feed. When animal excretions filter through watercourses, the excess nitrogen and phosphorus in them ruins the quality of water and damages aquatic ecosystems and wetlands. Approximately 70-80% of the nitrogen supplied to cattle, pigs and laying hens by feeding, and 60% of that given to "meat" chickens is eliminated in stools and urine and ends in diving courses, water.
Global warming and acid rain - Global warming is caused by energy consumption, given that in the modern world, primary energy sources are high-carbon fuels which, if burned, emit carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases. As noted above, livestock breeding is one of the major causes of increased fuel use. But livestock also emits greenhouse gases directly, as a by-product of digestion. Cattle emit a significant amount of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, in the air. Research in the United Kingdom indicates that fermentation in the stomach of cattle and sheep is responsible for 95% of methane produced by farms, while the remainder is caused by debris. The same study shows that one-third of the country's total nitrogen oxide emissions derive from animal leaching, while 39% of ammonia emissions are caused by breeding animals. In addition, the high ammonia content of animal waste is one of the main causes of acid rain.
3. Ethics: From the
ethical point of view, eliminating the whole of the flesh, on average, allows
you to save life and combating the daily holocaust that causes the
extermination of 64 billion animals each year to produce meat, eggs and
cheeses.
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