RADICAL SOLIDARITY COORDINATION
We are a radical solidarity coordination made up of anarchist, anti-authoritarian and anti-colonial groups and indivuals from different political backgrounds. We believe in horizontal and unmediated self-organized structures as tools of resistance and struggle and for the demolition of all forms of repression that the state and the capitalist system uses to perpetuate its dominance and authority in society .
This coordination was born from the solidarity assembly for the hunger strike of Dimitris Koufontinas where we got involved organizing and participating in many actions and demos in Berlin. As a group that is part of the local movement, we want to be active in worldwide solidarity.
Finding common ground in our ideas and practices, we decided to go further with the political struggle we have already fought.
For us oppression is the overarching interrelation of discrimination, dominance and exploitation and how they affect every field of our daily lives. It can manifest itself in the form of repression from the capitalist system and the state, or from any form of human dominance over other humans, over the earth and over other living beings. We want to fight against every form of dominance; because every form of dominance wants us silent and obedient, while destroying our cultures, communities and dreams and stealing our freedom. We want to fight for a world of self-organization, mutual aid and solidarity.
We fight against the state of control of police forces, political persecution, imprisonment, psychiatric torture, physical and psychological surveillance and every form of control over bodies, spaces, territories and colonial fragmentations, as practices that are functional for the state and capitalism and are being used as means to maintain their balance of power. Thus we fight on a worldwide level against every repressive institution, such as migratory offices, prisons, migrant camps, psychiatric structures, educational institutions and children’s homes, deportation and detention centers and many more, in order to break the isolation and exploitation that these institutions create.
OUR COMMON GROUND
The purpose of this coordination is to develop ideas and practices of radical solidarity, to face the oppression that intensifies more and more and to fight back against it in offensive ways. For us solidarity does not mean saviourism nor paternalism. It is not about having and maintaining any privilege by reproducing the separation between helpers and those who are helped. What solidarity means for us is destroying systems of oppression that reproduce privileges. It is about mutual aid and sharing ideas, propositions, practices and responsibilities.
We think of radical solidarity as a way of existing as accomplices in intentions, ideas and actions. Solidarity for us means acting not out of obligation to a sacred cause, but because it is anyway our own cause, part of our struggle and part of ourselves. This means we don’t let our ideas become repressed along with the people that are facing repression. We embrace these ideas and continue these struggles.
While repression should be never normalized, it should be understood as a consequence of the struggle against authority, its instituitions and its culture. Solidarity is then an inherent part of the struggle, as the only way to fight against repression is to stand together with those affected, publically and politically, beyond ideological affinities and personal connections.
Moreover the struggle against repression and for active solidarity is a necessary means in preventing ourselves and others from becoming isolated, especially during the pandemic where people in power practice more forms of control and repression on the streets, against social and antiauthoritarian fighters, and in every part of our daily lives. This has seen an intensification of exploitation for profit while at the same time covid is used as justification for increasing authoritarian measures put in place to defend state and capital from the consequences of a social contract that has been eroding for years.
Apart from the necessary psychological and material support, we want to build a solidarian movement which calls for demonstrations and manifestations, shows presence in trials and intervenes in society, embracing the persecuted and aiming to legitimize and strengthen their struggle. Our goal is to depersonalize repression by collectivizing its consequences, thus making it less threatening, making clear that it is not a conflict between a person and the state but the reaction of the ruling against the emancipatory movement.
We choose to build an antiauthoritarian self-organized structure as a tool to fight repression and control. One of the ways to achieve this is to strengthen the connections between those in solidarity and support and make ourselves reachable to other groups and individuals, so that we can develop ideas and practice, exchange experience and keep updated on ongoing struggles. What we want is to support solidarity calls and connect campaigns on a global as well as a local level. In addition to this we desire to build offensive anti-repression strategies to face upcoming repression against people in resistance. We want to practice active solidarity with people subjected to any form of repressive measures, which means to keep fighting for the same struggles that they fight. We self-organize and take action against their justice and their laws without stepping back. Our radical solidarity can be shown in different ways and we can be creative, with our imagination as the only limit to express it.
OUR CHARACTER AND DECISION PRINCIPLES
The coordination has a horizontal character, and consists of individuals and groups that want to collectivize. Decisions are taken based on participatory consensus or unanimity, reached after discussion and exchange of arguments, always taking care that our exchange takes into account our political, social and individual differences and aims to build relations of respect and trust between each other.
We want to avoid and overcome the forming of majority/minority opinions. For this reason we do not vote or use vetos, but rather aim to form a collective ground and agreement. There are different reasons why not every individual or group wants or can take part in every decision (topic affinity, content disagreements, personal time or ability to be present in a specific assembly). In such cases there is the possibility for sub-groups to act autonomously in the frame of the assembly. Based on the principles mentioned above, every group or sub-group decision and action is accountable for reflection at a later point in time.
We also stand beside prisoners, persecuted groups and individuals that make demands and struggle for reform, and also intervene in broader campaigns which put forward such requests, however always make clear that these struggles will only have an outcome if we fight parallel for the total destruction of the existing circumstances that necessitate prisons and repression in the first place.
Our stance against any type of authority means that we do not want any cooperation with any established insitutions, such as state-authorities, politicians, media etc. Our actions are self-organized and un-mediated which means decided, planned, and materialized through our own mediums and powers.
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They can imprison our bodies but not our ideas of freedom, and as long as there are rebels rising up against every state of domination our ideas will take shape in practice, break walls and spread without borders.
Radical solidarity against repression!
Sabotage the system !
For a world without prisons. Until we are all free, we are all imprisoned.
Contact: radicalsolidarity@systemli.org